OTTAWA—Canadians may never know how much taxpayers shelled out to American-owned Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville to play host to G8 leaders in June.

The Harper government recently released hundreds of pages of details on how it spent $857 million at the G8 and G20 summits. But millions of dollars of expenses were blacked out in the documents and further inquiries reveal the federal Conservatives have no plans to divulge these payments to real estate giants, construction companies and resort owners.

While the Conservatives have said they are coming clean on all summit costs, government officials admitted to the Toronto Star that Ottawa signed secrecy agreements with many summit contractors. One of them was Deerhurst, the sprawling lakeside resort where Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other G8 leaders met for about 24 hours last June.

Anne White, Deerhurst communications director, says it is against company policy to make public how much the resort was paid by the federal government to run the central venue for the G8 meeting.

But, based on what Ottawa spent for other summit facilities, the payments almost certainly were in the millions of dollars. For instance, taxpayers handed over $5.5 million to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, which hosted the follow-up meeting of the G20 on the same weekend. And the Direct Energy Centre in Toronto received $4.2 million for housing the summit media headquarters.

Shortly after the G8 ended, Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers, the Hartford, Conn.-based corporation that owns Deerhurst, put the 114-year-old luxury resort on the auction block. The company won’t name the asking price. But the 400-room property, which sold for an estimated $21 million in 1998, is rumoured to be on the market for more than double that figure.

Besides the international publicity generated by hosting the leaders of the world’s advanced economies, Deerhurst benefited from the $50 million Ottawa spent to spruce up the Huntsville area in advance of the G8, which included resurfacing of Deerhurst Drive, upgraded cellphone coverage and enhancements to the local power grid. The government also paid $4.5 million to build a security fence around the resort.

The numbered Ontario company that acts as an operating arm in Canada for the resort’s U.S. owners was paid $344,000 to house summit management staff in the month leading up to the summit.

And Deerhurst received four other confidential payments from the department of foreign affairs for “exclusive use” of the property, “fit up” and renovations, office space and “time share” accommodations, according to federal records. While the size of these payments is secret, they were counted as part of the $122 million that the foreign affairs department forked over for the G8 and G20.

Deerhurst also received a payment — with the amount blacked out on publicly released government documents — from the RCMP for use of its private airstrip during the summit, the records indicate. This would have come out of the $329 million the Mounties spent for the two summits.

“From Deerhurst’s perspective, it’s important to note that a large portion of any investment related to the event is really about things that are infrastructure-related,” White noted in an interview. She said improvements on roadways and local communications networks for the summit “will be of long-term benefit to the community rather than the resort specifically.”

But the use of “commercial confidentiality agreements” by public works, the federal department that handles Ottawa’s contracting, is certain to bring charges that the Harper government’s claims of accountability are flawed.

Liberal MP Ralph Goodale, a former public works minister, said the use of a confidentiality agreement may be suitable in some instances, such as when a private company is forced to divulge competitively valuable information to a government regulator.

But “I’m at an absolute loss to see why it would apply here,” Goodale said. The G8 contracts “are purely and simply commercial transactions,” he said. “To use a confidentiality agreement to hide the expenditure of government money is totally inappropriate.”

The records released by the government state that unknown amounts of money went to other companies that, according to federal officials, chose not to reveal the terms of the contracts, including:

• Fercan Developments for office and warehouse space in Toronto for the RCMP, OPP and other police and security units.

• Hidden Valley Ski Club in Huntsville for use of its site.

• Brookfield Office Properties for lease and “fit up” of 151 Yonge Street

• Moriello Construction of Barrie for space for police and security forces.

• Various numbered Ontario companies for use of office and warehouse space.

• Cadillac Fairview for “lease and fit up” of five floors at 77 King St. West. Heath Applebaum, Cadillac Fairview’s communications chief, wouldn’t discuss the contract. “Due to client confidentiality, we never disclose the terms of any leasing transaction,” he said.

These expenses may add extra ammunition for the Harper government’s critics, who claim the G8 and G20 summits ended up being the most expensive weekend in Canadian history.

Accommodation and food for security and summit officials ate up enormous financial resources. According to government records, for example, the Sheraton hotel received $7.1 million, the Westin Harbour Castle got $4.8 million and the Fairmont Royal York had a $5.3 million bill.

Of the $1.1 billion set aside for the two summits, the government has so far accounted for $857 million. In documents released last month, Ottawa said the bulk of the expenses — $675 million — went for security in Huntsville and Toronto.

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But it will take months to digest the vast array and volume of the spending spree associated with the two summits, which included such items as:

• $47,000 to a landowner to rent a space by the road near Huntsville for a “free speech” venue that was never used by protesters.

• $158,000 to two media companies to provide simulated “news bulletins” and other imitation media broadcasts on a website available to security personnel during two summit preparatory exercises known as Trillium Sentry and Trillium Guardian.

• $128,000 for air sampling for the Microbiological Emergency Response Team.

• $14,000 for down jackets for a pre-summit conference in Iqaluit.

• $43,000 for a “running gear entanglement system” to halt any menacing boats.

• $2 million spent by CSIS, which said details were classified secret.

• $33 million in RCMP contracts to private security firms.

• $498,000 to the town of Huntsville to complete development of the community events centre there, which had already received $26 million for construction costs.

• $1.5 million to the Muskoka Tourism Marketing Agency to create a “G8 tourism branding strategy.”

Much of the outpouring of money for the summit went into the Muskoka region, potentially benefiting the 90,000 people in the federal riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka currently held by federal Industry Minister Tony Clement.

But whether the summit will have lasting benefit in the region is not clear.

“People like gifts, so there are obviously some people who are always pleased to have money put into the riding,” said Jo-Anne Boulding, who ran unsuccessfully for the NDP in Parry Sound-Muskoka in the 2008 election.

“My problem with it is that we need sustainable jobs,” she said. “We’re a very poor area, we have a lot of unemployment. I’m the vice-chair of our local food bank, and August was our worst month in 20 years.”

Boulding said what is needed is lasting employment rather than one-off projects built with summit cash.

“I want jobs, I want support for small businesses so they can hire people,” she said. “It’s nice to have little gazebos in Orrville and it’s nice to have a little sign that says Bracebridge and all the rest of it, but we didn’t add any permanent jobs.”

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