Why no infrastructure cash for hosting the G20?

The Muskoka region that hosted the quiet G8 summit a day before the G20 received tens of millions of dollars of federal funds to improve infrastructure.

Roads throughout the region were rebuilt, buildings were built or expanded, airports were enhanced, power grids and cellphone coverage were improved and even municipal signage was perked up! The region got quite a bit of improvement that will live on long after the memories of the summit have faded.

Toronto on the other hand, which was forced to host to the much larger G20 Summit, had public and private property destroyed and to the best of my understanding did not get any infrastructure improvements related to the G20.

This seems a bit unfair, the Muskoka region got lots of money pumped into it and had only peaceful protesting, while Toronto got no money pumped into it and had violent destructive protesting that almost closed down the downtown core. And to make matters worse the federal government has made it extremely hard to get compensation for the damage that was done to private property during the G20.

It seems to me that there was a severe imbalance of funding between the G8 and G20 summits. Toronto could have desperately used federal funds to improve its roads, build or expand public buildings, improve its airport and power grid, enhance its municipal signage and not to mention, improve its public transit infrastructure!    

I guess once the memories of the G20 fade all we’ll be left with is a bunch of businesses with increased insurance premiums because of the damage done to them during the Summit rioting!  

About Adam Zendel

Comments

[Lee]

I think the reason for this is:

-- Muskoka's MP: Tony Clement
-- Number of Toronto Conservative MPs?: 0

[fuddleduddle]

Sounds like par for the course - the rich folks who pay little or no tax are the only ones who can afford properties in Muskoka and they get all the perks, meanwhile, the hard-working, tax-paying little guy working 12 hrs/day, 7 days per week gets his store destroyed & looted in downtown Toronto, and gets nothing.

Pitiful, just pitiful. Remember this in the next Federal election.

[Rik Aikman]

Wow, the Tories held the G20 in Toronto, an easy place for protsetors to attack and gave us NOTHING. Yet they spent millions in Tony Clements riding which was so far out that protestors couldn't get there. Could the G20 have been held in Nunavut or The NWT or the Yukon and money spent building housing ... you bet it could have. And Toronto business owners, small independent businesses, would have been spared the destruction, and loss of business through closures. The G20 brought no economic gain to Toronto, but it brought a lot of lost income and violent protest. Is this what we want from our federal government?