While the media, opposition parties and the public focus on the $2million / $50,000 "Fake Lake" the real story goes mostly untold. For the supposed cost of these upcoming G-whatever meetings' security we could have 50 fake lakes, IN EVERY PROVINCE!
Ever wonder what a billion dollars can buy?
- A meal for everybody in Africa
- A 6-pack of beer for every Canadian (over 30 million people)
- 1 million big-screen HD, LCD televisions
- A first class ticket around the world for 125 thousand people with a couple thousand dollars each for souvenirs
- Employment in Canada for 48,543 people for 1 year at the median income for Canadians (or 13,333 family incomes)
- 10,000 stretch limousines (or 40,000 cars you and I are more likely to buy)
- 3,076 'average' houses in Canada (or 1,250 in Toronto & Vancouver)
- 200 wedding rings for Beyonce
- 50 tourists visits to the International Space Station (so it is about 1/2 as expensive to send somebody to space then it is to have them visit Canada)
- 3 top-end 747 airplanes (with $10 million left over for a kick ass launch party)
- Security at the winter Olympics for 10s of thousands of people for 3 weeks
- 46 days of clean-up effort in the Gulf
- 27,777,777 feet of security fencing, well more than enough to stretch across Canada
- 400,000 security guards @ $2,500 each (20,000 for each leader!)
- 2 million Tasers
- 1,500 armoured riot-control trucks
- About 17 hours of face time for 20 people pretending they can influence world affairs.
The arrogance of these people is truly awe inspiring, but I'd rather the 6-pack.
Actually, I doubt the $1B figure, it is hard to see how that could seriously be required ... I'll bet that organizations are using this opportunity to stock up on all sorts of gear and goodies like the latest in anti-riot equipment, more integrated surveillance, and other big-brother technology that we'd really probably rather didn't exist let alone have to pay for. It seems clear from that list above, the costs are not going to traditional security measures to protect a small group of people.