Canada’s Conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, is getting roasted for the extravagant spending on the forthcoming G20 summit in Toronto. (See my earlier blog post)

Almost $2 million is being lavished on a tourism pavilion, complete with a “fake lake”, at the G20’s media centre.

This profligacy is outraging Canadians.

Canada’s public service broadcaster, the CBC, is running a story which has Harper defending the project which is apparently designed to simulate the sparkling lakes of Ontario’s “cottage country”. 

Ooops!

We are all getting used to reading about Canada in the papers. It is held up by David Cameron as the model for slashing a soar-away deficit – admittedly some time ago, in the mid 1990s.

Nevertheless, Harper is giving advice to Cameron on how best to go about swinging the axe.

Cameron, being a PR man himself, will be acutely aware of the dangers of being photographed anywhere near the "fake lake" when he is in town for the summit.

Such extravagance in the age of austerity.