Hon. Tommy Banks:

Honourable senators, on a happier note — well, it is not all that happy.

Honourable senators, the government has said, as I understand it, the principal reason for its refusal to support the Canadian bid for Expo 2017 is cost, and that it feared that the federal government's cost would be in the order of a billion dollars.

However, on November 2 and 3, four weeks ago, safety and security representatives from all three orders of government met in Edmonton to review the security and safety costs for Expo 2017. This meeting was a due diligence review by federal, provincial and municipal security officials.

The resulting revised Expo 2017 consolidated security profile represents the costs allocated across all budgets for safety and security. The total budget is $91 million in escalated dollars. That amount is based upon due diligence conducted by the responsible agencies and representatives of the federal and provincial governments and the City of Edmonton. It includes the safety and security costs of the capital and operating budgets shown in table four of the consolidated security profile. It includes policing, fire and emergency medical services that had been shown previously in other budget sections. The amounts have been consolidated and come to $91 million.

That amount includes all security and safety costs including fencing; security lighting; access control gates; vehicle screening; overhead lighting to support all the security elements; training of the security people; radios for security people; site communications; master security system; X-ray machines; metal detector gates; safety and security personnel for 120 days including site lock-down before and subsequent to the fair; security equipment for five or six months including installation, operation and dismantling; and various other items set out in the consolidated security profile.

This safety plan, which was vetted by all orders of government, provides detailed principles to the development of the comprehensive safety and security plan. The plan provides that the Edmonton Police Service is the lead and does not require external resources for policing, and that it is responsible for leading an integrated and planning command module for all orders of government.

The security role of the Government of Canada is limited to matters within its jurisdiction exclusively: protection of internationally protected persons, national security investigations, threat assessments and border and entry, the costs of all of which are set out in the agreed budget.

The due diligence review on November 2 and 3 by those three orders arrived at the mutual conclusion that Expo 2017 is a low threat level event. Air support is not required. Those budget numbers resulting from the November due diligence meetings, to which I have referred, are: The Expo corporation's share is $64 million; the City of Edmonton's incremental costs are $8 million; the Province of Alberta's incremental costs are $8 million; and the Government of Canada's costs — including federal coordination and oversight, RCMP, internationally protected persons, Canadian Security Intelligence Service and Integrated Threat Assessment Centre threat assessment and Canada Border Services Agency border and entry costs — are $10.9 million, for a total of $91 million.

Can the leader please explain how it is possible that Mr. Flaherty can derive, even applying the wildest imaginable escalation factors, that the budget could possibly reach $1 billion?

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