Canada, the G20, and security

The Canadian government is planning to spend over $1bn Canadian on security related to the upcoming G20 and G8 meetings. This is nuts, so nuts that even the National Post, which is the more "rightish" of the two major Canadian papers, is calling foul.

More generally, this episode reflects the unfortunate choice by Canada's conservative minority government headed by Stephen Harper to channel some of the worst aspects of the Bush II administration, including excessive preoccupation with security and excessive government secrecy. That's a shame, because Canada could really use one party (out of five!) that is consistently (or even frequently!) skeptical of state power.