Warning sirens should have gone off all across Ottawa, and especially in the Prime Minister’s Office, when Stephen Harper announced last December that Toronto would host the G20 summit.
The sirens should have sounded not just because of the potential for violent protests in downtown Toronto, but because of the possible damage that the riots and the subsequent official inquiries might do to Harper’s political fortunes.
Whether he likes it or not, Harper may well discover his election prospects forever entangled in the aftermath of the G20 summit.
So far, though, he has managed to escape the post-G20 fallout, which includes calls for public inquiries into police actions that weekend, the threats of lawsuits against the City of Toronto and demands for compensation for lost business and destroyed property.
Indeed, since it ended nearly three weeks ago, Harper has said nothing about the summit. Instead, he’s spent the last weeks merrily travelling across Canada, enjoying the Calgary Stampede and hitting the summer festival circuit.
He’s left it to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews to take the heat for the summit while at the same time ensuring his Tory members on the Commons committee on public safety successfully blocked efforts by opposition MPs earlier this week to launch hearings into the summit policing.
Despite his silence, Harper has much to answer for about the G20 in Toronto and the G8 held a day earlier in Huntsville — from why the summit was held in downtown Toronto to the staggering $1.2 billion cost to questionable federal spending in the Muskoka area.
Such questions deserve a full airing by Harper.
Inquiries are rightly being held into police actions that resulted in some 1,000 people arrested during the two-day summit in what many contend was an unprecedented and excessive manner.
The Toronto Police Services Board and the RCMP will both look into how police performed during the summit.
Meanwhile, Ontario Ombudsman André Marin will investigate the Ontario government’s use of the Public Works Protection Act, which at first was described as giving police the power to detain and arrest anyone within five metres of the security fence surrounding the summit’s no-go zone.
But a separate inquiry is needed into the overall planning and handling of the G20 by Harper and his government.
Except for a few tourism officials thrilled with the thought of packed hotel rooms, everyone knew that sticking the summit in the middle of our largest city was a bad idea.
So, was it stupid decision-making by Harper’s advisers or simple incompetence that resulted in the summit being foisted on Toronto?
Adam Vaughan, whose city council ward was most affected by the summit, accuses the Harper government of a “cascade of failures.”
Clearly, Harper doesn’t want to be seen as bowing to public pressure to hold a full-scale inquiry, given that he is on record as opposing a public probe of the summit security.
What’s stopping him, though, from calling it a “review,” as long as the result is the same, namely a full look at all the decisions leading up to the fateful summit.
Here are some questions a review panel could examine:
• How did the costs reach $1.2 billion?
• What efforts were made to control spending?
• Did 10,000 delegates really need to be in attendance?
• Who approved more than $50 million in spending in Industry Minister Tony Clement’s riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka for such “summit-related” items as bandshells and street paving in towns never visited by any delegate?
• Who decided to hold the summit in downtown Toronto instead of on the CNE grounds?
• Why was Toronto Mayor David Miller’s advice ignored?
• What steps were taken to ensure no security overkill?
• Who was in overall control of spending?
• Who authorized the fake lake?
The list goes on.
These questions will likely dog Harper right to the election.
And unless he answers them, no good will come out of the summit for Harper, just as nothing good has come out of it for Toronto.