Quote:
Originally Posted by Leto
yes, well, the excuse is the cost of security. I heard that the G8/G20 in Toronto is using roughly 5 times the number of police as Pittsburgh did for the G20. So, the extra cost for this summit should be roughly 5x the Pittsburgh cost which equals 90 million. So, where is the extra 1.2 billion going to?
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Towards this, of course:
Riot police on horseback move through the streets of downtown Toronto in the midst of protests against the G20 summit in Toronto, June 26, 2010. --(Mark Blinch/REUTERS)
To be serious, though, Pittsburgh, for all intents and purposes is a
tiny city. I think it has less than three-and-half thousand people within its city limits, and those limits, again, are significantly smaller when compared to such metropolitan hubs as New York, Paris, London, and especially Toronto (given we are in the present talking about the summit, as was held in Toronto).
Toronto is the largest city in Canada and the provincial capital of Ontario. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. With over 2.5 million residents, it is the fifth most populous municipality in North America. Toronto is at the heart of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), and is part of a densely populated region in Southern Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe, which is home to over 8.1 million residents—approximately 25% of Canada's population.
My point here being is that the additional expenses that were said to have gone towards security measures, planning and preparation, well, I can entirely (well, perhaps almost) believe they spent it all on enforcement detail. Given the facts that if we are just going on manpower here - to aid in crowd control - then that would lead the layman to theorize that an increase of 7-8 times the numbe of law enforcement/authorities would be mandatory, drawing upon the example from the most recent meeting, of which the expenditure that was ordered saw it fully necessary for the G20 summit held last November in Pittsburgh.
Additionally, this summit, although "officially" held over the weekend through a period of two days, from 26-27, seemed to draw out a lot longer than the one that preceded it. I don't know what it is, but this weekend's news of the G8/G20 summit (are there two separate meetings? that mgith already mean double the security personnel needed right there) seemed to start on the 24-25, and just capitulated sometime last night. The actual process of discussion among nations might have only been brief over a period of two days, but the presence of protesters, supporters, campaigners and regular citizens walking throughout the streets of Toronto was a week-long process.