Over the weekend, a gentleman at a BBQ suggested to me that the hand-wringing over the G20 is the product of distinctly Canadian inner-conflict. We want the world to pay attention to us, but we're embarrassed by the attention as well. We want to prove that we're an international player, but we're uncomfortable shelling out cash for something as déclassé as security. We believe strongly in the right to protest, but we'd rather it not happen at our front door. We pride ourselves as the international voice of reason, but have allowed our financial commitment to foreign causes to slip. Voter turn out is at record lows, but we wonder why Ottawa doesn't listen to our complaints.
It's hard to tell if other countries have had a more positive attitude toward their hosting duties. Pittsburgh denied protest permits that would have allowed demonstrators anywhere near the leaders line of sight, resulting in lawsuits, general consternation and an eventual clash with police that saw tear-gas and sound cannons deployed. But their mayor believes the image of the city was forever changed for the better, with visitors seeing it as an environmental success story that managed to move past its industrial roots. And London? A man died of a heart attack during protests there and the summit required the highest security expenditure in British history. But last month, the Brookings Institute in Washington said that the G20 summit in England had a profound effect: "As a result of the process of concertation, communication and coordination in the run-up to the April 2009 London Summit, the G-20 countries together provided $5 trillion in stimulus to the world economy, an unprecedented combined jolt to precipitously dropping global demand."
At this point, I'm not sure what would have to happen for the June summit to be considered a success by the majority of Canadians. No tear gas or violence at protests. No mass arrests. An actual concrete action by our government and others to improve the lives of women around the world. And maybe the realization among our population that politics in this country does matter: that the way you vote can have an impact on where these meetings are held, how dollars are spent, and what image we project overseas. Maybe the fact that we're all talking so much about the G20 and how it's being run is an indication that the summit's lasting legacy has already been established: that in Toronto at least, voters can no longer claim that politics doesn't affect their lives.