G8/G20 Hiring Committee Spending $1 Billion Three Weeks Before Summit?

I was reading the Toronto Star this morning and noticed a massive half-page ad in the classifieds devoted to hiring people for the G8/G20 summit.  Here’s a snap from the hireme2010.com web site:

G8/G20 Summit Hire Me

I find myself a little astounded by this.  Just three weeks before the summit, the companies behind the security are just doing their hiring now.  They’re paying a hefty $20-$24 and will supply uniform, meals and benefits.

BUT WE’RE JUST 3 WEEKS BEFORE THE SUMMIT, AREN’T WE?

We’re spending a billion bucks on last minute planning?  For people who are going to be literally walking off the street into security outfits to protect the world’s leaders?

Seriously?

And what of the excessive cost of doing half-page ads in major Canadian newspapers for a short-term recruitment?  What’s the cost on that?  Probably nothing compared to the cost of getting top-notch squeegee kids and Alarm-Force wannabes for the gig.

Talk about an epic fail.

I tried to dig a little to find out about the ‘who’s who’ of the organizations that are doing the hiring.  Most of what I could find is that CSC is a mashup of several partnerships, most of which are based in the US.  Example:  ApexGroup (http://www.apex-grp.com/home.html).

All of this reinforces the notion that something about the billion-dollar-boondoggle price-tag on this reeks and my bet is that there are connections here we’re not seeing (nor will we ever see).