Cottage Country's Payday

Obviously we need to axe public service jobs across the country – how else are we going to pay for gazebos and bandshells?

Nearly $50 million was spent in Tony Clement's Ontario riding to “spruce it up” for last year's G8 summit without much oversight, explanation, or logic, according to a report by the auditor general. The Toronto Star's Tim Harper declares the summit's legacy to be “pork barreling, deceit and promotions,” as the two men responsible for it, Clement and then-infrastructure minister John Baird, were recently given top jobs – Treasury Board president and foreign affairs minister, respectively – for their hard work. “This is Ottawa. It’s not to be confused with a meritocracy,” sighs Harper, before pointing out that Clement will have a hard time convincing the public service that he needs to cut their jobs when the inescapable smell of bacon wafts over his cottage-country riding.

John Ivison of the National Post attempts to find a silver lining in the AG's report, concluding that “you may disagree with taxpayers’ money being spent on these projects, but they were no more egregious than thousands of others in ridings right across the country that benefited from billions of dollars in stimulus spending.” He also points out that the summit came in well under budget – only $664 million of the allotted $1.1 billion was doled out – and supposes that Clement is ideally suited to “put an end to wasteful spending of government money — a subject in which he appears to be something of an expert.”

Should you want to see the projects your tax dollars paid for, the CBC's Meagan Fitzpatrick provides us with a handy tour guide of the best sites that benefited from federal largesse. Starting off at an airport touched up to the tune of $3.5 million in North Bay, about 138 kilometres from the summit site, you head on down to Huntsville through an esthetically pleasing route highlighted by $875,000 for a bandshell, a clock, and more for the town of Sunridge, public bathrooms in Burk's Falls, and $1 million on beautifying the already-beautiful town of Bracebridge. And that's before the $30 million spent in Huntsville itself, much of which went toward a seldom-used convention centre and an Olympic-sized hockey rink. If the Tories decide to cut away at the CBC to make up for the deficit, at least Fitzpatrick can always fall back on a career as a travel guide in the Muskokas.