Lemme Get This Straight; More Tax Dollars So Steve Can Pretend Be Green? – Don’t Forget Overpriced Wallpaper! Update

Oh boy! How twisted is that? Greg Weston publishes yet another disturbingly expensive detail for these summits. If anyone thought the fake lake took the cake. Then feast your eyes on  a living wall; complete with its’ own irrigation system no less.

Down the hall from Loonie Lake in the Toronto media centre, taxpayers are being hit up yet again, this time for something called “The Living Wall.”

Summit organizers are contracting a massive wall of pre-cultivated plants that come with their own irrigation system.

This, we are told in government documents, will be the G20 summit’s “signature environmental project.”

“Leaving an environmental legacy is an important component of the overall environmental strategy for the G20 summit.”

(Speaking of legacy, Toronto taxpayers will have to take care of this vertical flowerbed for the next century).

How much The Living Wall will end up costing Canadian taxpayers is anyone’s guess.

With two weeks to go before the structure has to be in full bloom, the summit management office sent us a note saying it still had no cost estimates for the project.

Likely translation: The bill for this thing is too outrageous for publication.

Oh, and that’s not all, folks.  Some seem to think, that the 5-star resort where the G8 leaders in the real Muskoka are staying;  there is not enough light and that it needs a slight make-over.

Up north in Muskoka, the summit green theme is also everywhere but on the agenda.

For instance, taxpayers are shelling out $207,000 for 15 of what have to be the world’s most expensive solar lights to illuminate the pathways at Deerhurst Resort, where the eight leaders are staying for one night.

While it is hard to believe this five-star resort had no path lights of its own, the federal contract assures us “this signature environmental project will contribute to the overall greening of the G8 summit.”

And when the leaders have left the next day, the contractors have to dismantle the six-metre lights, and reinstall them somewhere in the nearby town of Huntsville.

Your tax dollars at work over and over.

Huh? Wow! That. Is. Impressive!

Expensive solar lights and living walls, no doubt to keep them rif-raf enviro-nuts and green folks out of their shindig.

So, to get things straight now. Steve said that Kyoto “was a soshalist scheme to suck money out of wealthy nations”;  won’t even try to commit to any of that farce of a Copenhagen agreement (unenforceable, naturally);  and nothing in his last budget for improving the environment.  Won’t even entertain measures like carbon taxes or cap and trade plans. But…but, it’s just honky-dory to overspend on the two summits to pretend to visiting dignitaries that we’re being green.

And it is pretend. If Steve were really serious about being green, he would stop trying to develop the Alberta tar sands and stopped sucking up to big oil. Maybe even try to help further develop alternative, cleaner sources of energy like solar panels and wind farms.  He would be creating real green infrastructures instead of one hit wonder fake ones. And how about those green jobs that could be created, thus, helping the economy?

Wow! I could think of cheaper ways for that. For a start, they could have just not had these summits and just teleconferenced everything as I’ve mentioned before.  Also a real planet saving measure from this, think of how many airplanes would not be flying to Canada.

No one is really serious about the environment though; getting their pics taken with fake smiles seems to be more important than helping reduce pollution emitted from airplanes.

Also, it seems that the environment doesn’t appear to be on the agenda for neither the G20 nor the G8.

Now, I’m waiting for the rabidly anti-environmental pundits and the hardcore Harpercon cheerleaders from the Blogging SupposiTories to somehow justify this expense and the ‘green’ rationale behind this overpriced hootenany.

UPDATE: Greg Weston over at  Sun Media has been covering the growing expenses. It is thanks to him we found out about fake lakes, living wall, and now, the most expensive backdrops/banners for both convention centers to the tune of  1.1 million $ of our tax dollars.

The latest bit of fiscal fun at public expense is $1,102,500 — wait for it — for backdrops in the two meeting halls hosting the summits.

No joke: Foreign Affairs is shelling out over a million bucks for those really big banners and signboards commonly used as backdrops behind speakers’ podiums.

These will be used mainly to decorate the meeting halls in Toronto and Muskoka where the world leaders will be gathering for their gabfest and photo op.

Ok, before my life as a civil servant began, I  had a short tenure as an estimator (I sat in a back office and did nothing all day but calculate prices, haggle with sub contractors and write  quotes for sales reps and their clients)  for print shop that specialized in large format printing — billboards, vehicle wraps, lightbox films, banners…all different materials ranging from el-cheapo one sided 13 oz banner vinyl to the expensive canvases and meshes. In hard surfaces; from coroplast to polystyrene to plexiglas. Silk screening (more expensive) and digital (much much cheaper). The shop I worked for was one of the more pricey ones in Montreal. Granted, the exact quantity or exact dimensions of these posters nor do we see how they look, thus, not even sure how colours are used but  these prices still sound off, even if silkscreened on the more expensive materials along with some fancy finishing ( banners–stitching, welding, grommets, dowels– for har surfaces–lamination; varnish).   I can’t imagine (unless in multiple quantities and much tiling had to be done) any of this coming to anything remotely close. Not to mention, as a rule, governments have to take the lowest bid when hiring any company or organization for products and services needed.

Oh, and yes, hardcore Harpercon cheerleaders are already lambasting our friend Greg Weston for keeping tabs on the expenses. Boy, some do really tie themselves into knots to justify the expenses and when they can’t, well, then, Greg simply becomes a Liberal Harpercon hater who’s nitpicking.   I guess some might even feel sorry for those folks as clearly, they don’t have a life.

I have one question to ask them: they have problems with their tax dollars paying for social programs, green projects, groups involved with social justice and abortions, but have no qualms over the ballooning expenses of a photo-op hootenany that no one is invited to.

H/T Scott’s Diatribes