Canada expo 'over the top'

Canada's recent announcement that it is spending a mind-boggling US$900 million to protect the two global summits it's hosting on June 25-27 was bad enough.

Now, planners of the 72-hour diplomatic jamboree - the G-8 summit of industrialised democracies and the broader G-20 - are running into howls of derision for trying to showcase Canada's tourist appeal by building a media centre that includes an artificial lake with canoes, trees, deck chairs and a fake dock.

Does Canada, whose charms and natural beauty have hardly gone unnoticed by the outside world, need to spend nearly US$2 million on a theme park of itself? And does that park need to go up in Toronto, just blocks from a Great - and real - Lake?

Many Canadians would agree with opposition politician Jack Layton's verdict: "Fakelakegate." The G-20 are meeting in Toronto while the G-8 will gather 225km to the north, in Huntsville, Ontario.