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 of the G8 and G20 meetings. The meeting that took place during the 2008 economic crisis is often cited as calming the market, but the long term benefit of that meeting is doubtful. The policies that are announced after these meetings are often laughable and usually ignored by the same governments that supported it. Often these meetings feel like nothing but an excuse for foreign travel and for anti-capitalist protests.

Some have claimed that the solution is to have the world leaders video conference with each other. Really that would be pointless. It isn’t like the heads of governments don’t already talk on the phone on a regular basis. That isn’t the point of the meetings. If there is a benefit at all the benefit comes from the face to face discussions between high level officials. There just isn’t anything that can replace being next to the person you are talking to.

Perhaps the solution is instead to not make G8 and G20 meetings a regular event. If the meetings are restricted to times of a clear need for discussion, such as some global economic crisis, then the member countries will not have to bear the cost of so many meetings. This would also bring more value for money because it will cut down on the pointlessness of some of the G8 meetings we have seen in the past.

If we assume that there is indeed a point to having these meetings at all, then for the sake of the taxpayer’s money, leaders should ensure that they actually have something important to talk about.