The Liberal Party's timeline of a "G8/G20 billion-dollar boondoggle"

Back in February 2009, Ottawa announced Huntsville would be hosting the G8 summit and G20 summits in June 2010. At the time, Parry Sound-Muskoka MP Tony Clement made these remarks about the financial benefits of having Muskoka host both international meetings:

“There may be some augmentations to the existing (G8) budget but I would argue they should be minor," he said. "After all, one of the advantages of holding both in Muskoka would be the cost advantages.”

Fast forward to today. Huntsville has since been deemed too small to accommodate the larger G20 summit, which will now be held in Toronto on June 26-27, and security costs for both meetings have ballooned to a staggering $1 billion (and counting).

Today, the Liberal Party of Canada released a timeline on its website of how costs have managed to ratchet up since that 2009 announcement. The timeline was compiled with information gleaned from various news reports -- you can read it here.