While Mr. Harper may consider a meeting that produces a piece of paper that is no more likely to be acted upon that any of the past G20 meeting agreements a success, it is understandable how Canadians living with the impact the financial downturn and Mr. Harper’s policies have had on Canadians living in the real world regard Mr. Harper’s $billion$ dollar photo-op as a failure and a profligate waste of money.

Going into the meeting Mr. Harper was seeking agreement on switching from stimulus to austerity in the name of deficit reduction and to avoid any topics he did not want to talk about (the increasing levels of poverty and homelessness, the lack of a national housing strategy and the disproportionate negative effect these issues have on women and children in Canada).

Obviously Mr. Harper is hoping that getting the G20 to call for a switch to austerity will provide political cover for the budget when it begins to inflict pain on most Canadians – ‘It is not my (Mr. Harper’s) fault, the G20 decided on this’.

I say most Canadians because, while these cuts will be devastating to the poor and painful for average Canadians, the budget will undoubtedly be generous to wealthy Canadians and Corporations – after all Conservative ideology is that you have to preferentially treat business and the wealthy.

So, with Mr. Harper hosting a G20 meeting from which he wanted to achieve an agreement to move from stimulus to austerity what does Mr. Harper do?

He wastefully spends $1.2 billion, the lion’s share of which includes spending 30 times more on security than has ever been spent for security at a G20 meeting before and splurging on fake lakes, false backgrounds for reporters to use to file their stories and other luxuries.

At a G20 meeting where Mr. Harper’s agenda was about imposing austerity on the average citizen, about creating more poor, more poverty, more homeless, more social inequity – Mr. Harper spent as though cost was no object.

Why is it that when politicians talk about the need for austerity and deficit reduction, that austerity never applies to them? When the actions of the government result in job losses or lower salaries why aren’t government MP’s laid off and the salaries or the golden pension of the remaining MP’s reduced?

I wonder: if the members of the government were forced to share the pain their decisions and policies caused, just how much less cavalier and more thoughtful these decisions, not just decisions on austerity but all decisions, would be?

At the very least, if you are holding a G20 meeting about the need to end stimulus and impose austerity that meeting should be austere not a billion dollar luxury boondoggle.

You hold it at a military base were security is already in place.

Not enough accommodation for all the staff that wants to attend? Bring smaller entourages.

No luxurious accommodations? Base housing, barracks, military meals … it would serve to remind the leaders and the attending civil servants about economic and housing realities in the lives of real people. A reminder that this G20 meeting demonstrates is badly needed by Mr. Harper and his government.

Holding it on a military base or somewhere other than the downtown core of Toronto would not have turned downtown Toronto into a ghost town, shutting down businesses and disrupting the lives of millions of Canadians. Unless, of course, you’re a Politician of Mr. Harper’s nature – then your wants outweigh the needs or good of millions of ordinary Canadians.

Mr. Harpers comments on “the invading vandals heading to the nearest large city” highlight Mr. Harper’s preference for seeing what he wants or needs to see to justify the decisions made.

Having those whose only aim is vandalism and rioting head for the nearest city is exactly what you should want to achieve as it will separate out those whose only purpose is violence from the legitimate protesters who will be on location at the G20 meeting site. Proper planning would ensure that when the vandals show up on city streets – without the cover of thousands of protesters to hide in – police could move in and arrest them.

Toronto’s mayor is correct in asserting that the federal government should not only be compensating businesses for lost business as a result of closing down downtown Toronto but should bear the costs of cleaning up the mess of the rioting and should be compensating businesses for any costs they are out of pocket as a result of the riots.

All of these costs resulted from the poor judgment shown by Mr. Harper’s government in choosing to hold the G20 meeting in downtown Toronto and so are the responsibility of Mr. Harper’s government.

What makes spending any money on the Toronto G20 spendthrift, and the amount actually spent obscene, is that the history of agreements arrived at during G20 meetings indicate that this current agreement has all the worth of what it is – a bunch of politician’s promises that are no more likely to be kept than the promises made at previous G20 meetings or during elections.

Given that the US is worried about a double dip recession and plans on continuing stimulus spending to avoid stalling the US economy into that second, possibly deeper and longer, downturn the so-called agreement is not worth the cost to print it.

In fact reality may yet intrude on Mr. Harper’s ‘successful G20 meeting’ as the latest economic numbers, together with what is taking place in the equity markets and developments in other nation’s economies suggest the worldwide economy is still in a very fragile state.

Which raises the disturbing question: is this what Success has become?

Watching the politicians, pundits and media falling all over themselves to proclaim what a success the G20 meeting was engendered a ‘we’re doomed’ response from this writer.

Generating a piece of paper covered with fancy words and political promises (and we all know just what those are worth) at a G20 meeting when the words and promises of prior G20 meetings were relegated to the scrapheap as soon as the meetings were over, is not a success.

Landing a man on the moon and returning him to earth was a success. The performance of Canada’s athletes at the Vancouver Olympics was a success. Creation of the Charter of Rights and freedoms was a success.

In each of these instances something concrete and valuable was achieved.

Reducing poverty instead of increasing it; reducing homelessness instead of increasing it; providing leadership on the issues of mental health and addiction instead of ideology that ignores both knowledge and reality; creating more financial equity in Canada rather than increasing the inequity by robbing from the poor to give to the rich; increasing the social equity in Canada rather than creating a class structure; providing leadership that helps citizens strive to be Canadians rather than wannabe Americans; would be concrete and valuable goals and achievements.

A billion dollar photo-op is not a success – unless your goal is to bankrupt Canada both financially, ethically and of the Canadian Spirit.