Business Beat by Mike Hinds
When the G-20, International Monetary Fund and World Bank met in Ottawa from Nov. 16-18, streets were shut down. Consumers stayed home. Some businesses lost money. This is unfortunate, but it is not the federal government’s job to compensate merchants for that loss.
Granted the government should have consulted the community before holding the meetings here. But the solution for business lies not in compensation, but in demanding that the government include the people it represents in deciding whether or not to hold these sorts of summits in the future.
Compensation for businesses alone would make it seem like business interests are the only ones that count. Unless the government is also willing to compensate all those peaceful protesters who were harassed by police, bitten by their dogs or detained for wearing black, it should leave businesses to make up their losses over the other 362 days that exist in a year.
A case could be made that the government ought to help those businesses – like the McDonald’s on Bank St. – that suffered damage at the hands of a few protesters. Yet these places are in the minority; and the cost of replacing a window or washing graffiti off a storefront have nothing to do with the up to $10 million in losses that Ottawa businesses are estimated to have suffered over the course of the weekend that meetings were held.
At least some of this money will likely be recouped in the frenzy of consumerism that is the holiday season. Granted this frenzy will be taking place within the confines of a society whose economy teeters on the brink of recession, and with memories of Sept. 11 at the forefront of many peoples’ minds. Yet as the story ‘‘Tis the season to be shopping’ suggests, these factors have so far had a minimal impact on Christmas shopping.
Should the government decide that it will always have to compensate businesses for revenues lost during these sorts of meetings, it may in the future be hesitant to hold them in urban areas with large concentrations of people and businesses. But lack of consultation aside, to remove the meetings from this milieu would only serve to reinforce the impression many people already hold of these institutions as being both undemocratic and off-limits to civil society.
Rather than seeking compensation and, in some cases, threatening to launch a class action lawsuit, businesses – along with everyone else – should be demanding that the government make public the overall expense of the G-20, IMF and World Bank meetings; this total would include the cost of security widely perceived as excessive, putting up delegates in the Chateau Laurier and cleaning up the feces of police dogs left behind on the streets of downtown Ottawa. These are costs which, as taxpayers, business owners and employees have the pleasure of helping to cover, despite having had no say in determining their size and scope.
The federal government last month declared it would give $2 million in compensation to businesses in Quebec City that were located outside the security perimeter during last April’s Summit of the Americas. Much of this money is going to businesses that suffered property damage during the summit.
That’s not what’s happening in Ottawa, in large part because virtually no physical damage was caused during the weekend of meetings. Businesses should stop seeking compensation for their losses, and start demanding that the government consult citizens before spending their money.