G8/G20 security update

Last week I commented on the ridiculous amount -- over a billion dollars -- being spent on "security" for the photo-op that masquerades as a summit of world leaders, to be held in Ontario at the end of this month. That's a billion US bucks, just for "security", not including the cost of other huge pork barrels such as Lake Harper -- the fake lake being built inside the Toronto media centre, a stone's throw (if you have a good arm) from Lake Ontario (a real lake).

Here are a couple of examples of how much planning and care is going into the security arrangements.

As if bringing cops and soldiers from all over Canada wasn't enough, the RCMP (a.k.a. Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen) decided they'd better hire a private security company to provide additional manpower. [Please say "personpower". ed.] Who better to turn to than the firm which guarded the Winter Olympics held in February in Vancouver. They managed to keep "Call me Steve" Harper and other VIPs* from getting stoned (in the Biblical sense) or pied, so they could do the same again now, right?

Only one hitch. The ink on the contract had barely dried before someone noticed that the firm in question, Contemporary Security Canada, is... errrr... not licensed to undertake such services in the province of Ontario. Since getting a licence takes 6-8 months, and the summit is to be held in a couple of weeks, there's some pretty fast walking around in the halls of Queen's Park this morning.

Meanwhile, in Vineland, Ontario -- just down the road from Fruitland -- the horsemen have joined the local police -- both of them -- in looking for the man who bought 60 55-pound bags of ammonium nitrate.

As the village names suggest, that part of Ontario is fruit country, whence come many surprisingly good wines. The wines are made from grapes. To grow the grapes you need fertilizer, which is what ammonium nitrate is.

So what's the big deal? Seems a bright Mountie remembered that ammonium nitrate was what Timothy McVeigh used to make his bomb in Oklahoma City in 1995. And with the G8/G20 and G8 summits just around the corner, you can't be too careful, eh!

Mind you, McVeigh used about 120 times the amount bought in Vineland, but still, according to RCMP Sgt. Marc LaPorte, "It is a legitimate fertilizer in that quantity, it's just that it is also an ingredient for a bomb. There is a concern because of the upcoming events in Huntsville and Toronto. We're taking this potential threat seriously."

Maybe a bit too seriously? Leave aside the distinct possibility that the purchaser is a farmer. Walt's Ontario roadmap reveals that Toronto is about an hour's drive from Vineland, and Huntsville... errr... about three hours.

As fans of The Simpsons and South Park know, it's all too easy to poke fun at Canada. Right now a would-be humorist doesn't even to make up stories. All you have to do is write the news. Stay tuned for more of the hilarious antics of those crazy Canucks!

* Very Irritating Persons