G20 Summit's Lasting Political Legacy

Now that the G8 and G20 summits are fading into the past, we can begin to speculate on what will survive the immediate political and public relations first impressions. This will not likely include any of the formal agreements and commitments arising directly from the summits since the track record of countries following through on those is quite poor. Much like the summits themselves, before long both we and they will pay little attention to promises made, and indeed it is very likely that we will even forget what those promises actually were.

The real political legacy for Canada in particular is likely to be unrelated to the formal agenda of the summits, but is likely to haunt the governments of both Canada and Ontario for some time. I suggest that this legacy will take two forms:

1. Comparisons of the ~$1.2B spent on security to other government program spending.
2. How governments set the balance between security of politicians and citizens versus the rights to free speech, media privilege and protest.

For the past two post-summit weeks both governments are not doing so well. First, comparisons of security expenditures are already coming fast and furious. This spans the range from spending on various social programs, bailouts of GM and other corporations, and now disaster relief for farmers in Saskatchewan:

NDP Leader Dwain Lingenfelter said the $30 an acre was a slap in the face. He compared the $360-million payment ($144 million provincial and $216 million federal) to the $1.2 billion the federal government spent on security for the G8 and G20 summits in Ontario.

Regardless of whether the comparisons are justified, they are being made and we can expect them to continue. Even if this aspect of the summits' legacy dies down after a while, expect it to be brought to the fore once more when the next federal election occurs. This could be as soon as this fall.

On the second point, so far it is the Ontario government that is taking the brunt of the backlash. Certainly both city of Toronto and the federal government shares the responsibility for how security was managed, and their time in the spotlight will come, but for now it seems that the Ontario government is the primary focus. Sympathies for the protesters themselves is not terribly high, although theirs have been the loudest voices in the aftermath. The real impact will come from quieter voices: businesses that sustained physical damages and loss of revenue, Toronto citizens who were inadvertently victims of the police, and reporters who were sometimes excessively restricted or the target of security actions.

Since these voice are quieter it may take some time until the impact is properly felt. When it is, there is the potential to damage the reputations and prospects of a number of politicians, since it is likely that, since the majority can identify with them, the victims of collateral damage will get a sympathetic response. While difficult to predict, I would say that it is Premier McGuinty who faces the greatest risk.

I was quite amused when Ontario Ombudsman Andre Morin announced that his office would investigate the Ontario government's secretive legal and political manoeuvering to establish new security procedures in the lead-up to the summits, and how these were communicated to the police forces on the street. I was amused because of the government's recent attempt to smear Morin's reputation -- who has a highly positive public profile due to his strong performance -- until relenting and reappointing him to his office. I am sure that he, too, is amused, and relished the opportunity to get involved once his office received enough complaints to justify action on the file.

As for the police themselves, across all the forces involved, I suspect they will come out fine in the end. There undoubtedly were some poor actions on their part, but I think it is their bosses, the politicians who authorized the laws and gave the orders, to whom the mud will deservedly stick.