…to raise a chandelier and remove a light fixture?
This is not a joke, alas, except on us taxpayers.
G8 leaders who came to Toronto for that infamous meeting last year asked, and they received—while we forked out nearly $2 million to tart up their quarters in an exclusive hunting lodge in Muskoka. Yup, Tony Clement’s riding. Again. What a surprise.
Here’s the punch line, so to speak:
The documents obtained under access-to-information do not specify who asked for a small chandelier to be removed from a hospitality suite, at a cost of $500. [Public Works spokesperson Anne] White acknowledged was “a smaller light fixture” but there was more involved than simply loosening a few screws.
“The work order actually entailed an electrician, an apprentice/assistant and a carpenter for disassembly and relocation of the large boardroom table” over which the chandelier presumably dangled. She said the table was put back in place after the chandelier was removed.
Ms. White said the tab also included packaging and storing the chandelier off-site, “due to finite storage space” at the resort. Moreover, after the summit, “the process was repeated to restore the room back to its original use.”
As for the $3,000-tab for raising the lobby chandelier, Ms. White said this light fixture “is very large and weighs several hundred pounds.” As a result, raising it “required an electrician, an apprentice, two additional persons as well as the rental use of two scissor-lifts as the chandelier had to be swung away and stabilized by two people while it was being raised to its highest point.”
Neither White nor Public Works explained why the chandelier needed to be raised, although Ms. White said: “It had to be restored to its original position once the event was over.”
Thank goodness no light bulbs needed changing.
