The Spectacle and Expense of Securing Summits

Michael Larsen. Published on June 16, 2010

The Government of Canada claims that it is both necessary and reasonable to spend close to a billion dollars of taxpayer money on security for the upcoming back-to-back G-8 and G-20 summits, in Huntsville and Toronto respectively. As is the norm with security practices, serious public debate about the benefits and costs of a given initiative has been short-circuited or simply dismissed.

One billion dollars buys a lot of (in)security: A massive compound for the small army of police and para-police who will be traveling to Huntsville to stand between the global elite and the public; fences, no-go zones and CCTV cameras to carefully control and keep a watchful eye on, well, everything and everyone; LRAD sonic cannons for ‘communications’; and, of course, logistics and support for the network of integrated policing and intelligence operations that are already well underway.

The summits will leave Canadians with a massive bill – and security services with plenty of new gadgets and gear to use down the road. Controversy over the cost of the events will lead to an audit, and probably a bit of scandal. But the money has already been spent, and the spectacle will go forward.

It is difficult to accept the argument that this mobilization of resources is in any way in the service of a measurable public good, and if this expenditure is about security, then it is time to ask some hard questions about what precisely is being secured.