OTTAWA—The federal government showered $50 million on the Muskoka region to compensate residents for the “inconveniences” of hosting world leaders while Toronto — which suffered security headaches, protests and property damage — was shut out of any cash.

Federal officials confirmed Thursday that much of the funding of a generous G8 “legacy infrastructure fund” was never meant for the summit but rather as payback to people in the Parry Sound-Muskoka region — a riding held by Industry Minister Tony Clement.

As Toronto cleaned up shattered glass from downtown streets and tallied up its lost business, residents across Muskoka were enjoying new sidewalks, bandshells, public washrooms, bridges and a resurfaced airport runway, all courtesy of the summit “slush” fund, opposition MPs charged Thursday.

And they questioned why Toronto — which played host to the larger G20 meeting in June and was ground zero for the protesters — has been denied similar largesse.

“The restaurant owners and the guys that got their windows smashed want some help for these things and I’m not sure they’re going to get it,” said NDP MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre).

“Was there a corresponding legacy fund for Toronto?” he asked during a Commons’ committee Thursday.

“Not to our knowledge, no,” said Taki Sarantakis, of Infrastructure Canada.

And a spokesperson for Toronto Mayor David Miller also confirmed there was no G20 legacy fund for the city. Stuart Green, of the mayor’s office, said that Ottawa contributed $27,000 for tree planting and about $250,000 to build a “living wall” — a wall of plants — at the Direct Energy Centre.

Officials from five federal departments were on the hot seat Thursday as they were grilled by opposition MPs about a scale of spending that Martin called “flagrant . . . hog-troughing of the highest order.”

“Tony Clement has a lot to answer for,” he said.

“This legacy fund . . . has nothing to do with a legacy for the G8. It seems like a legacy to the minister. You did everything but build a statue to Tony Clement in the riding.”

But bureaucrats said the legacy fund was no different than other funds put in place in Canadian cities that hosted world events — $60 million for Vancouver in 1997 for hosting APEC and some $13 million for Halifax for the 1995 G7 summit.

“This fund was very much set up as a legacy fund to compensate the region for the inconveniences associated with hosting this event,” said Bryce Conrad, of Infrastructure Canada.

“Having a large group of world leaders and their respective delegations presented a number of significant challenges to the local population.

“These include dealing with the increased security, the media and the sheer disruption of everyday life associated with this type of world class event.’’

Conservative MP Ed Holder (London West) called the fund “a gift to the region, a chance for all Canadians to say ‘thank you’.”

Yet officials were unable to explain why Toronto — which saw its downtown core virtually shut down for the G20 summit — wasn’t compensated as well.

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For their part opposition MPs on the Commons’ government operations committee were united in expressing outrage over the tally of expenses.

“What you’re telling us here is shocking. It doesn’t seem to be 100 per cent above board. How can you justify all of those expenditures,” Bloc Québécois MP Diane Bourgeois (Terrebonne-Blainville) said.

Liberal MP Siobhan Coady (St. John’s South-Mount Pearl) questioned why upgrades were made in towns far from Huntsville, where the G8 summit was held at the end of June.

“Some of them are almost 100 kilometres away, an hour’s drive away, from the site itself. How inconvenient could it have been?” Coady said.

Under the legacy program, municipalities scored a financial windfall. Unlike traditional infrastructure projects that require local municipalities and the province to kick in equal shares, Ottawa paid the entire cost of legacy projects.

The Conservatives have been under fire for months for the avalanche of funding around the Muskoka region before the G8 gathering.

For instance, the government earmarked $274,850 for a bandshell and new public washrooms in Baysville, 31 kms from the summit site. Thousands were spent on a new Lions Park shelter and band shell in Sundridge, 65 kms from Huntsville, and $10 million went for upgrades for the North Bay airport even though it was never used by G8 leaders.

“They had money for just about everything up there — things that people neither needed nor wanted, and yet nothing left for Toronto — no legacy fund and not even compensation for businesses which were badly hurt,” said Liberal MP Dan McTeague (Pickering-Scarborough East).

But the $50 million for the G8 was only about half of the cash that the federal government has pumped into the region since Clement, who originally won the Parry Sound-Muskoka riding by only 28 votes in 2006, became industry minister.

A Toronto Star investigation found that, besides the G8 summit funds, Ottawa funneled another $50 million into the riding of 90,000 people in the past few years. Under a range of federal programs, money has been found for almost every conceivable project in the riding, including fire halls, train stations, curling clubs, parks, bike paths, community centres, car pool systems, college dorms, museums and health programs.

“I’ve never seen anything like it in my years here,” said the NDP’s Martin.

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