Canada: $1 billion security operation for G8/G20 summits, largest ever

[Hannah Bell]

Next month’s meeting of the G8 and G20 leaders in Ontario, Canada will see the largest and most expensive security operation in Canadian history. From Wednesday, June 23 to Sunday, June 27 presidents and prime ministers from the world’s largest economies will meet to discuss the ongoing crisis of global capitalism — first at the G8 summit in the resort community of Huntsville and then at the G20 in downtown Toronto, Canada’s largest city and the center of its financial industry. This will be the first time that the two summits are held back-to-back in the same country.

The leaders and their entourages—some over a thousand strong—will be protected by thousands of federal, provincial and metropolitan police, troops from the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), and a myriad of national security-intelligence agencies. Last Wednesday, the Conservative government of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that the revised cost-estimate...would top $930 million...

Security forces are using the twin summits to extend the police powers of the Canadian state. Several weeks ago, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) conducted a low-flying military aircraft exercise over the region. Truck drivers have reportedly been approached to act as “look-outs” for the police. Hospitals will be placed on an emergency footing and a giant holding pen has been constructed for demonstrators arrested during the summit week...

A late-night fire-bombing of a Royal Bank branch in Ottawa in mid-May—reportedly perpetrated by individuals protesting against the use of Aboriginal land during the Vancouver Olympics and the bank’s funding of tar sands projects in Alberta—has provided the political climate for security forces to demand an even larger role in not only the lock-down of Toronto but in further attacking democratic rights across the country. The fire-bombers, purportedly members of a previously unknown organization, FFFC-Ottawa, threatened further actions at the upcoming summits...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/may2010/secu-m29.shtml

[Swamp Rat]

1. Why waste a dime on their sorry asses?

Why do we give a fuck about the very few wealthy oligarchs who will cast us into the gutter of abject poverty on a whim?