The Shotgun Blog Saturday, June 26, 2010 We should cut down on the number of G8/20 meetings Polls show that Canadians feel that the cost of the G8 and G20 meetings are too high. At the same time the polls show a general support for the international clubs as well as support for Canada hosting the meeting. Evidently the Canadian people don't mind being the centre of global negotiations but reasonably feel that the price tag should not be too high. This eminently reasonable position is undermined by a report made by Kevin Page that the cost of the summit is not 'out of line with other countries.' It appears that the numbers that have been used to compare the cost in other countries are not measuring the same factors. The Americans, for example, only reported in 2009 the cost of overtime and visiting military and police forces. The $19 million reported cost is hardly comparable to the more complete accounting of the Canadian government. As Dr. Roy points out on his blog, Kevin Page is hardly a hack of the Conservative Party. I think it is therefore fair to say that Mr. Page's report is accurate. There are some painfully obvious places that the government could have saved money, but the overall cost of having these meetings is still demonstrably high. The question then arises, is the advantage of face to face meetings among the most important global leaders worth this cost? It is hard to measure the benefits