An announcement was made by federal Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day on July 23 that "It's going to be more than $175 million, clearly, and the exact numbers will be out pretty soon. We're just going over some fine details."

If Day's objective is to inspire confidence, he's doing a poor job. Nobody with any brains believed that the $175 million figure had any relation to reality. Now, Day says that there will be "exact numbers". Uh, this is a budget we're talking about. Do you have "exact numbers" for what you're going to spend on groceries next month? Of course not.

More realistic estimates of "close to $1 billion" were made years ago. Story from the Ottawa Citizen: Vancouver 2010 Olympic security will be over budget.