The distinct allure of abandoning democracy in Honduran cities

Three months ago, when I was new in Honduras, I probably would have dismissed the 'charter cities' idea pitched in a column in today's Globe and Mail as undemocratic and dangerous.
Now I'm not sure the Honduran government's decision to give them a try here is wrong.
The concept is a free-market elitist's dream.  Set aside a large parcel of land, big enough for a city with several million inhabitants. Make it, at least figuratively, a walled city separate from the norms and conventions and justice system and laws of the host country.
Suspend democracy and give power to appointed experts who would set up new rules and enforcement systems. (Some basic rights and guarantees would be preserved.)
The common model would see foreign governments, and private companies, help with administration - maybe providing judges or a police force.
The concept is that the cities, by providing stability and safety and shunning corruption, would attract foreign investment. There would be jobs. And people would choose to move to them. The Globe column pitches the idea as creating a little Canada in the middle of Honduras, which is in itself attractive. Equally, it could be described as setting up a little China in the middle of the country, with the state's experts making all the rules.
The idea tends to be embraced by free-market enthusiasts, who counter the undemocratic aspects by noting people can vote with their feet by moving away from the city if they don't like it.
That's not really democracy, nor is it really true. Desperately poor people - and more than 40 per cent of Hondurans live in extreme poverty - grab at any opportunity. Survival takes priority over exercising or demanding democratic rights. Some 700,000 Hondurans are living illegally in the U.S., and every day people try a dangerous journey to a better life, risking robbery, murder and starvation along the way. In the first three months of this year, the U.S. has sent 8,200 people back. (The economy would be devastated if Hondurans didn't head to the U.S. They send about $2.7 billion back to their families here - about 19 per cent of the country's GDP. (Those quick with numbers will note that the entire economic output of this country of 8.3 million people is less than British Columbia spends on health care.))
So claiming that they will leave a charter city if the masters abuse them is just false. (There is a useful post on the perils of model cities here; advocates make their case in this report.)
Democracy is messy and inefficient. But who would the appointed directors of the charter city serve - the citizens, or the companies, largely foreign, whose investment is essential to the city's success?
It's not just a theoretical discussion here. Last year, the Honduran Congress voted to allow Regions Especial de Desarrollo, or REDs. The law clears the way for charter cities.
But all that said, I can't reject the idea out of hand. It is really tough to see a way forward, one that would ease the suffering and give hope to Hondurans, who consider crime, corruption, poverty and bad government the norm, and an inevitability.
Maybe model cities - for all the risks - would offer an alternative that would at least suggest possibilities for the people of this country.
As Bob Dylan said, when you ain't got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.

Byelections not great for Conservatives, or Liberals

Four thoughts on the byelection results.

First, New Democrats should obviously be pleased. Tidy campaigns, two wins, no apparent effect from the attack ads. In Chilliwack-Hope, turnout was down by 2,900, but the New Democrats gained 130 votes over their 2009 result, while the Liberals lost 5,490. The Conservatives' total increased by 2,350 votes.

Second, the results show the Liberals can still claim to be the choice of those prepared to vote strategically to block the NDP. That's important for Christy Clark. If the Conservatives had placed second in either riding, John Cummins would have at least a theoretical claim to the support of strategic anti-NDP voters.

Third, the results confirm the Liberals' problems are much deeper than a split in the non-NDP vote. Look at those numbers in the first paragraph above. Liberals support dropped by 5,490 votes; Conservative support only increased by 2,350 votes. Some people who voted Liberal in 2009 voted NDP; many more just stayed home. One of the fallacies in the argument that making the Conservatives go away would solve the Liberals' problems is that Conservative support would all migrate to the Liberals. Many Conservative voters would not vote at all, based on these results.

Fourth, Cummins did well enough in both ridings to keep Conservatives enthused, despite the third-place showing. The party attracted 15 per cent of the vote in Port Moody-Coquitlam; weak, but not bad considering there wasn't even a candidate in the 2009 election, and 25 per cent in Chilliwack-Hope.

That's bad news for the Liberals too. There's much talk of uniting-the-right to save the Liberals - or whatever a new party might end up being named. But that faces big hurdles. The Conservatives are surging because many voters can't stand the NDP or the Liberals. They won't be easily wooed. And other Conservatives are hardcore social conservatives who believe they have finally found a party that speaks for them. They too will be difficult to convert to Liberals.

And Cummins is not a man given to political compromise.

All of which creates a problem for Clark and the Liberals. A bid to relaunch the party - or a new party - looks desperate and might not work. Arguing that people have to vote for the Liberals even if they think they're doing a lousy job would alienate some voters and is hardly inspiring.

Attack ads to scare voters into voting Liberal are an option, but it's hard to see how they would be enough.

Hard days ahead for the Liberal party.

And another thing....

Clark continued to make the argument Friday that the Liberals are the only alternative to the New Democrats, and that she is the ordained leader of the anti-NDP forces.

That was reinforced by calls Clark chief of staff Ken Boessenkool made to Conservative organizers, according to some fascinating reports from Rob Shaw of the Times Colonist. Boessenkool is apparently pitching a merger - but Clark's leadership of the merged party is not open to debate.

But a look at the combined Liberal-Conservative vote in the byelections shows the problem with that position. The fact is that 41 per cent of anti-NDP voters rejected Clark and the Liberals. If there is to be a new coalition party, it's hard to see how it can be led by a person who has - at best - the support of 59 per cent of its base.

PIne beetle jobs disaster and government inaction (and secrecy)

Independent MLA Bob Simpson yesterday raised questions about a government document forecasting half the forest jobs in the Interior would disappear in the next few years. The rush to harvest the pine beetle wood will be over. The damaged forests will be decades away from harvest size. No wood, no mills, no jobs. The document proposes a few short-term measures, like logging in protected areas. (The government was quickly removed from the government website once Simpson asked about it in the legislature.)

The economic crisis reflects a massive government failure to respond to an inevitable and obvious crisis. In a 2004 column, I wrote about the job losses when the pine beetle wood was harvested.

The crisis would challenge any government. There are no easy routes to economic diversification to replace a core industry, or retraining for its workers.

But the federal government's response has been anemic, given the scale of the disaster. The province's Pine Beetle Action Plan has been hopelessly inadequate, especially in terms of economic development. The provincial government has failed to warn workers that their jobs will end, and missed opportunities to take bold action.

All despite the fact that this disaster has been unfolding in slow motion, in plan sight.

Update: Simpson has the document, now declared secret by the government, at his website here.

The strange world of Honduran teachers

There's no end of baffling stories in Honduran newspapers. Today, I read about a three-toed sloth - endangered here - rescued from a San Pedro Sula home where it was being kept, badly, as a pet. It's doing OK. The story was unclear why the people thought a sloth would be a good substitute for a dog.

But the reports on the education system - especially teachers and their unions - are the most baffling.

First, the news was that teachers were striking because they hadn't been paid. Cheques were weeks or months late. Some stories said the government didn't have the money on hand. Others said the payroll systems were simply a mess. Either way, it's bizarre that the state can't get its act together to pay employees.

Then the education minister - a federal post - was whacked. In part, El Tiempo noted, it was because he couldn't get a grip on the job. After two years, he still hadn't been able to establish how many teachers were actually employed.

That suggests one reason people weren't being paid. But the converse was apparently true; a 2011 audit found 3,448 'ghost' teachers were getting paycheques, but couldn't be found in any school.

Then both papers reported widespread corruption in hiring and promotion policies. Education officials were demanding, and getting, $3,000 to $4,000 for teaching places. The right cash payment - or political connections - could jump a candidate ahead of more competent, better qualified applicants, or buy a bump in salary level or better school. Some 18,000 unemployed teachers are looking for work. If you can get a job, the pay is good. Bribery would be appealing, and worth millions to the recipients.

That story is still unfolding.

And of course, it's all against a backdrop of overcrowded, poorly equipped classrooms, some with 90-plus kids from several grades.

I usually try to bring these posts back to B.C. This one is a little harder.

But there is one thing in common. Despite the problems like not being paid regularly, people are lining up to be teachers in Honduras and paying kickbacks to get jobs.

In B.C., about 1,800 people a year graduate with teaching degrees. Another 800 show up from other provinces hoping for work. But there are only about 1,000 vacancies a year. Despite the long odds, people are trying for teaching jobs and spending years on sub lists. (And if bribery were possible, I expect jobs would go for a tidy sum)

Which is bad news for the BCTF. It's hard to argue wages are uncompetitive when there are almost three applicants for every job, with the number increasing every year. Many, of course, just love the idea of teaching. Many like the pay - $40,000 to start, $80,000 at the top end - and the long holidays.

But unless the union wants to argue the profession is attracting second-rate candidates, it's hard to see a case for big wage increases when prospective employees are delighted with the current conditions.

The politics of buying dead white men's clothes in Honduras

I bought a T-shirt yesterday, my first clothing purchase in Honduras. It was overdue. We packed the night before we left, weighed our bags and found we had to shed about 20 pounds worth of stuff to make the 50-pound per-person limit. The skimpy wardrobe got skimpier still.

In Honduras, as in Canada, I shop used. It's cheaper, I can afford better stuff and the clothes are softer and less scratchy. (I have an obsession with avoiding scratchy.)

Fortunately, there are lots of little stores offering 'Ropa Americana,' the stylish term for used clothes. Some are on racks, some in big heaps, and prices are reasonable - maybe $3 or $4 for a short-sleeved shirt.

They aren't really 'Ropa Americana.' Most are made in China or India or even Honduras. The maquiladoras here - special zones with no taxes, low minimum wages and few rules - have spawned a textile and clothing industry. It's odd to think of a shirt making its way from here to Vancouver and back again, like some migrating bird.

Still, it's a nice term, and better than some. When I was considering a Cuso International placement in Ghana, I read that second-hand clothes were called 'obroni wewu' - loosely translated as dead white man's clothes. (Literally, “a white man has died.”)

I had wondered how the clothes got from North America to here, especially the t-shirts for universities, sports teams and fun runs that are so commonly worn. (Often incongruously, like the aged, sun-wrinkled woman wearing a red t-shirt that said "I'm a little princess.")

And, hours after I bought my shirt, I went on Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, apparently using a new algorithm that actually reads minds, arranged for a sponsored link on my page to Ropa al Mayreo. They have a giant warehouse in Miami and will ship 100-pound bales of used clothes - no rips or holes - to your door. They're vague on prices, but $1 to $1.50 a pound seems in the range. That's about $1 per item, but there are shipping costs too.

There's a continuing debate on the used clothing business, particularly in Africa. Some fear the loss of culture, as people dump traditional clothes for Abercombie and Fitch knockoffs. Ghana has promoted traditional dress on Fridays, kind of the opposite of our dress-down day.

And local clothing producers complain they can't compete and want the imports banned. (The issue is summarized nicely here.)

But really, governments better be handling the rest of their responsibilities well before they start dictating what people can wear.

And arguing that poor people - 67 per cent of Hondurans live in poverty, 43 per cent in extreme poverty - should pay more for clothes to prop up a domestic clothing industry is just cruel.

My new t-shirt is on the clothesline now, and I just went and checked. It's Fruit of the Loom brand. And it was made in Honduras.

Semana Santa in Honduras

We've made it through our first Semana Santa - Easter Week - in Copan Ruinas.

It's a fascinating phenomenon.

For starters, it's the year's big holiday, and much of the country is on the move. The public sector, and some businesses, shut down for the week; most operations just knock off early on Wednesday and don't re-open until Monday.

The tradition is that people travel for a brief break - to the beaches, or back home if they have moved away, or just somewhere different. The main bus terminal in San Pedro Sula handled some 1.3 million people in the week, mostly in the last five days. The roads are jammed, buses packed, prices rise and people crowd into the tourist spots. (That's not just true in Honduras; we avoided Semana Santa travel in Mexico after seeing pictures of beaches we knew as uncrowded staked out with tents from the high-tide line on back.)

And, of course, there is Easter. On Palm Sunday - the week before Easter, for those out of touch - there was a procession to the Catholic church on the square, with everyone carrying big palm branches. (Much more dramatic than the little folded palm crosses I remember from my Anglican youth.)

On Thursday, the night before Good Friday, they decorated two blocks with alfombras - literally carpets, but in this case elaborate scenes created on the street with coloured sawdust. Volunteers started work that night, laying down a base and using stencils to add colours from big bags of dyed sawdust. By about 2 a.m. they had created one block of scenes from the life of Jesus, and another of Mayan symbols. (The alfombras in the big cities are hugely elaborate.)

On Good Friday, there were morning and evening processions. We followed the morning group, which sets out from the church, people in robes carrying draped tables with large sculptures of Christ and the disciples, several hundred others following along. At each of the stations of the cross - 14 here - the procession stops and there is a Bible reading and brief sermon. The stations, on the cobbled streets, were decorated with draperies and a carpet of the long green pine needles that grow on the trees in the hills.

The sun beat down and it was roasting, in the low 30s, and the route led up steep, cobbled hills. It was impressive, especially when a group of women - mothers, obviously - came down from the Barrio Buena Vista carrying a platform with a haunted looking Mary, meeting with the main procession at Station 4, where Jesus meets his mother on the way to Calvary.

The spoken messages at each stop were interesting. The theme seemed to be how messed up Honduras has become - crime, corruption, drugs, alcohol - and that it was time to do something about it. (Though what was less than clear.)

When I watched celebrations from other cities on TV, the Catholic priests were talking about the same things. It appeared to be an orchestrated message, though less than half of Hondurans now identify as Catholic; evangelical churches have made great strides.

The evening procession was smaller, and the last few hundred yards were over the alfombras, scuffling them into obscurity. It was a mix of highly traditional rituals and low-budget technology. For music, a kid was carrying a $50 battery-power boom box, a guy walked in front of him holding a microphone, and a third person - who must have been deaf by the end of the day - walked in front with a giant white megaphone on his shoulder.

There was a fair amount of partying going on during Semana Santa as well. One of the messages in the procession was that people should be spending more time reflecting on Easter's meaning, and less on plans to hit the beach.

The president - Porfiro Lobo - made the same point in a statement as the week began. He urged all Hondurans to use Semana Santa as a time to reflect, and think about what they should and should not do. He suggested strongly he was spending the week at the family ranch doing just that.

But La Prensa found his photo on David Copperfield’s website, posing with the magician after catching his show in Las Vegas. It's a sore point, as many politicians apparently head to Miami and other U.S. destinations for the week, while most people pile into a bus and head to a crowded beach.

By Sunday morning, the sawdust was swept up. By the afternoon, things were back to normal.

But there was a cost to all that rushing around. The accidental death toll from the holiday included 29 people killed on the roads and 18 drownings. About 30 people drown in B.C. in a year. Honduras has twice the population, but 18 in a week shows a certain casualness about life and death that seems a problem down here.

'When the premier speaks, we would rather her comments not be reported'

North Shore News reporter Benjamin Alldritt has a great column on getting kicked out of a Christy Clark rally here.

Allldrit got a personal invitation from the local Liberal riding association. So did hundreds of other people. So he went to the meeting in a hotel, was admitted, got his name tag and was then booted out by Gabe Garfinkel, executive assistant to the premier. (Garfinkel was an aide to federal Liberal MP Joyce Murray who came over to the provincial payroll when Clark won the leadership.)

You have to leave, he said. It's not a media event. You shouldn't have been invited.

"When the premier speaks, we would rather her comments not be reported," Garfinkle said. "I'm sure you can understand that we don't want comments made in front of a private audience made public."

Let us count the gigantic failures here.

First, and most important, in promoting the notion that Clark wants to say one thing to several hundred Liberal supporters, but that it must be kept secret from the public. Fine, a strategy session with key people might need to be secret. But a speech to a throng of invited supporters hardly justifies secrecy, and creates the sense the premier has something to hide. (When in fact, as Alldritt notes, the speech was almost certainly the usual platitudes.)

Second, the hamhanded and dumb way Alldritt got the boot (although it did provide grist for a very nice column).

And third, the incompetence shown by the supposedly organized Liberals. If you do want to keep things secret as some sort of political strategy, or just to make supporters feel special, then you also need to manage the guest list so you don't invite journalists.

The result is that an innocuous event has become a political liability on several level.

But read the whole column here - it's worth your time.

The great problem of Clark's missed opportunity to lead

Charlie Smith identifies one of Christy Clark's big problems in a Georgia Straight piece today.

"With most politicians," Smith writes, "you can figure out what they really believe in. There are certain issues that you know they are passionate about, even if you don't agree with them."

Smith cites examples. Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants a big military and more people in jails. Gordon Campbell - leaving aside his many fleeting enthusiasms- believed that taxpayer support for the corporate sector would strengthen the province.

But after watching Clark as premier for a year - and listening to her as talk-show host for several - Smith writes that he's still not clear what she really cares about, or why she wants to be premier. She's talked about families and jobs, but what politician is against families and jobs?

Leaders, in any context, need to be able to set out a vision. People in the organization - or party - won't all agree, but they'll know the goals and be able to articulate them. And, on some level, help to achieve them. Leaders can hang on without them, of course. They have the power to enforce discipline. But entropy sets in.

And while political parties have an overriding goal - getting elected - that doesn't rally the uncommitted voters essential to success.

Clark's fallback position seems to be to campaign on the argument that people who don't actually like the Liberals or their current direction must vote for them anyway to keep the NDP out of power.

The argument is sound. Votes for the Conservatives, in most ridings, increase the chances of an NDP victory. (Thought the latest poll showing the Liberals and Conservatives tied undermines Clark's claim to automatic support.)

But it smacks of arrogance and is incredibly uninspiring. "Vote for us - even if you think we're doing a lousy job. You have no choice." (I recall Glen Clark making similar arguments as the NDP sank in the polls in the late 1990s. When the election was closer, he said, people would realize that even if they didn't like the New Democrats, the Liberals would be worse. They didn't.)

Some former Liberals will ignore Clark's pitch and vote Conservative or New Democrat. Others will just stay home.

The problem is greater for Clark because she failed to seize the narrow window - a matter of months - that new leaders in any organization have to set the new direction and articulate it. If they miss the opportunity, the status quo, or a vacuum, becomes the norm, and change is much harder. Any new direction now is likely to be seen by many voters as empty, pre-election posturing.

Death in the river, or how we came to have a Honduran cleaner

So, we have a woman who comes once a week to clean and do our laundry in the pila on the terrace. Pilas are a Honduran staple - a large concrete water tank with a corrugated shelf for scrubbing clothes and washing dishes. Ours isn’t filled. The upstairs tenants are worried, I expect rightly, about mosquitos.

I have never been comfortable with someone doing household chores. (Nor have I been great at doing them myself.) When I was a teen, a woman came to our house in suburban Toronto once a week to clean, except we were all required to make sure the house was spotless before she arrived. I played lacrosse against her large, not particularly skillful, son George. My strategy in stopping him was to allow myself to be trampled to the ground, and then try to tangle his legs as he ran over top of me. It was moderately effective.

In Gordon Head, Jody and I had a cleaner who suffered from light mental illness, which was unfortunate given the challenges placed in her way at our house.

She resigned one week when we were away after showing up and taking one look at the chaos. Jody’s son, housesitting for us, thought the place actually looked pretty good when she arrived.

Another time, she left a note that said only “Gone home. Scary ants.”

Which was quite true. For a year or two, large, horrible brown-winged ants would occasionally appear out of the walls and ceiling. One time we were having a family party and I watched in horrified fascination, willing the woman to move, as ants dropped from the ceiling onto the back of her dress. When the landlord finally had a new roof put on, the contractors swore they had never seen such a horrific infestation.

We don’t really need a cleaner here. Our place is small and we have little furniture and almost no clothes.

But we met Cecelia during our four-week home stay with Julia, part of our Spanish school. Or first we met Christina, her 15-year-old daughter. (I’ve changed all the names. The odds are remote that worlds will overlap, but it’s the information age and everyone deserves privacy.)

Christina lived in the home as a kind of house chica, cleaning and looking after the somewhat crabby 15-month-old son of Deanna, one of Julia’s daughters, who lived in the adjacent house. Christina had her own room, and seemed content enough. It wasn’t some Dickens thing.

Then we met Cecelia, her quiet mum, who also showed up sometimes to cook or clean, and Yeny, her dead charming nine-year-old daughter, brown-skin, dark hair, dark eyes, always smiling in a wise kind of way, happy to sit in a little chair and listen to Jody play accordion.

One day I was working on my Spanish on the slab roof, under the drying laundry, as Yeny sat on her little chair and grilled me. What did my shoes cost? How about my computer? How many children did I have? What did I think of Copan?

She said her father was dead. He drank beer, she said pointing to my Port Royal, and dove into the river and hit his head on a rock and died. (All later confirmed in other conversations, without the beer part.)

Which explained why Christina was at our place. Cecilia had three kids and almost no money, and little way of earning anything, so finding a way to have one less mouth to feed was pragmatic.

Yeny is charming, and direct. A week or so later, she and I had a conversation in the living room and she told me about a kid in her class who was getting hassled by the teacher because he didn’t have the required black shoes. They wear blue pants or skirts and white shirts and black shoes in the public schools. He’s too poor to buy shoes, she said.

That’s just wrong, I said. The teacher is out of line. Who cares what shoes he wears? Does that affect his school work?

We discussed the issue for a while, in my broken Spanish, as she patiently corrected me.

Then we drifted up to the roof, where Jody was playing accordion. Get this, I said, the teacher is grinding a kid in Yeny’s class because he’s poor and doesn’t have the right shoes. Outrageous.

But it turned out that my Spanish hadn’t been up to the conversation, and it was Yeny who didn’t have the shoes because she was poor. So she and Jody headed down the hill to the zapateria and bought shoes and a couple of pairs of tall white socks.

And once we were out of the home stay, we ended up with a cleaner, about $6 for two hours or so a week. Yeny comes sometimes. She brought me a fridge magnet, a little pink foam Volkswagen, her class made as a project for Father's Day. It says 'Dios te bendiga papa.'

Footnote: Minimum wage for rural workers in Honduras is about 95 cents an hour. For a mid-size enterprise, a mine or business or a hospital, it’s about $1.80. (The system is complex.) There are special lower rates for companies operating under the “Free Zones Act,” legislation which aimed - successfully - to attract foreign companies to set up maufacturing operations with no taxes, few regulations and low-cost labour.

But the minimum wage laws are not enforced and even getting paid is a challenge, the Honduras Weekly noted here.

Meeting a Honduran presidential candidate

We met our first Honduran campaigning politician on the weekend, likely the first of many given the nature of the process here.
He was Miguel Pastor, the guy in the picture above. (Though that's not Copan.)
We were heading to the square and he was walking along in front of a jeep with a bunch of followers. You could tell right away he was a politician - there is now a common look of big, healthy guys with nice haircuts and studiedly casual clothes. (Pastor and his guys had on blue-checked long-sleeved shirts, despite the heat. Blue is the National party colour.) There was even a younger guy who reminded me of Dave Basi walking along behind, whispering instructions to others in the group. (The candidates are still mostly guys, though Xiomara Zelaya, the wife of ex-president Manuel Zelaya who was deposed in the 2009 coup, is running for the new Libre Party.)
I thought it was a candidate for mayor, but people were taking pictures, which seemed over-the-top for a small-town mayor. So we concluded that it was someone bigger, though it took until the paper Monday reported that Pastor been on a weekend tour of the region that we figured out who he was.
Pastor quickly pegged me as a gringo and shifted his attention. But given Jody's tan and multi-ethnic look, he clapped her on the shoulder and gave her the full politician smile.
The next election isn't until November 2013. But the two main parties have member votes to chose their presidential candidates this fall, and that involves a long process that resembles a full election campaign.
Several people have characterized the political calendar in the same way. The president and Congress are elected to four-year terms. It's always a new president, because there's a one-term limit to avoid the rise of dictators.
The first year is spent complaining about the mess left by the old guys; the second year on announcing plans, followed by some ritual firings of ministers; the third and fourth years are devoted to campaigning for the next leadership races and the next election.
It doesn't leave much time for governing.
But then the BC Liberals launched their attack ads on John Cummins 20 months before the next election, and the first Dix ads even before that. The federal Conservatives have launched attack ads on Bob Rae already, with the next election likely three years away. That doesn't leave much time for governing either. (Which seems a serious error the BC Liberals are making, one that rates a separate post.)
I have no idea what the issues are here. The candidates all talk about corruption and crime, but it's pretty fuzzy so far, at least to me.
But they've got the politician style down cold.

Plant, Reid, Falcon and me on BC Rail scandal, with credit to John Van Dongen

John Van Dongen has accomplished something at least one very useful thing in reviving a discussion of the many unanswered questions in the BC Rail scandal.
Former AG Geoff Plant offers a useful perspective here. (The dissenting comment is mine.)
Finance Minister Kevin Falcon contradicts Plant here, saying every single Liberal MLA was "appalled" by the $6-million deal that ensured guilty pleas from Dave Basi and Bobby Virk.
Ian Reid argues Van Dongen is absolutely right in a blog post here.
And I refer you to two columns I wrote arguing the smell of the scandal lingers and questions remain, here and here.

Update:

I added another comment on Geoff Plant's post, responding to his argument that paying the $6 million in legal fees was not an inducement to get the guilty pleas because they were already in place.

"Sorry, but the hairs are being split too finely. If there were genuine guilty pleas arranged in negotiations with the special prosecutor in place, then there was no need to break the policy on indemnities. The guilty pleas would have been secured, the trial ended and the taxpayers could have recovered at least some of the $6 million.
If they weren't in place, then the $6 million was indeed a prior inducement because it came before the guilty pleas were actually secured."

Five thoughts on Van Dongen's leap

First, I don't buy the criticism John Van Dongen is just trying to keep a job in politics and thinks he would lose as a Liberal in his riding. My experience had been that he is an ethical person and I accept his explanation for sitting as a Conservative at face value. (That doesn't mean that he's right, of course.)
Second, the Liberal strategists' decision to have Rich Coleman stop just short of suggesting Van Dongen is emotionally and mentally unstable and hint at dark things to come out in the months ahead was sleazy and destructive. Criticize him for not staying to seek change in the party, or accuse him of betraying the people who elected a Liberal MLA. But don't launch a personal attack on someone you worked beside for 16 years. I can't imagine other Liberals were happy with the lack of decency.
In the same way, attacking Van Dongen for living with - and setting the pay - of his constituency assistant looked bad. The Liberals, apparently, considered it fine as long as he was with them, but a potential scandal once he wasn't. It smells of hypocrisy. (Van Dongen was anticipating the attack and had legal opinions saying he had done nothing wrong.)
Third, in the same vein, how can it have seemed a wise idea to keep Christy Clark unavailable for 24 hours? She's the premier, a senior MLA quits and challenges her government's integrity and she can't be found.
Fourth, I'd like to know more about Liberal constituency assistants, the hiring practices, rates of pay and who sets them. Van Dongen's assistant and partner is paid $78,000, a lot of money. The appearance of conflict of interest in setting the pay, at taxpayer's expense, for the person you live with, is obvious. So is the conflict in managing job performance.
What are other Liberal CAs paid? Who sets the amount, and what are the hiring practices to ensure the best candidates are in the jobs? (The NDP CAs are covered by a collective agreement; the last time I checked the top pay was about $47,000.)
It's time to lift the secrecy around MLA spending.
And fifth, Kevin Falcon's comments in The Tyee were a noteworthy contrast to Coleman's over-the-top attack.
"I can't say it's a total surprise to be honest," said Falcon. "John's been indicating he's been upset about a few issues for a long time."
"I like John, I respected John, I still do," Falcon said. "That's obviously a decision he's made after some thought and he'll have to live with the consequences good or bad."
Those sound like the comments of a person who might see a leadership change, and rebuilding job, in the near future for the Liberals.

Conflicting stories on Canada and Honduran police problems

Canada made the news in Honduras again this week, in a confusing kind of way, after a visit by junior foreign affairs minister Diane Ablonczy.
The Honduras Weekly, an English-language online newspaper, had a headline that said “Canada Will Help Honduras Reform Security System.”
That would be a big commitment. Honduras Weekly said Ablonczy had agreed to name a Canadian expert to to a five-person Commission for Public Security Reform. The commission’s focus would be on cleaning up corruption in the police and justice system, and is expected to result in a major re-org and purge in the police forces. Its work will be controversial and difficult.
And potentially important. Corruption, gangs and the drug transport business have made life woefully insecure for Hondurans, which has the highest murder rate in the world, and are a major barrier to economic and social progress of any kind.
But La Prensa said Ablonczy, while offering generalities about helping improve security in the region, had refused to confirm Canada would name an expert to the commission.
And the Foreign Affairs Department new release on the visit offered no help, only one of those made-up quotes so beloved of the people who work for government communications shops. “Canada reiterates its support for the Honduran reconciliation efforts and reaffirms its commitment to assist the Government of Honduras in meeting serious security challenges,” Ablonczy allegedly said.
The confusion is unfortunate. The Honduran government has named three members - a former university head, a sociologist and a former interior minister. The government hopes Canada and Chile will add members to take an independent view. And delays would undermine the commission’s credibility, already viewed skeptically by Hondurans.
It was also interesting that the visit, and the issues, got no coverage in Canada, as far as I can tell.
That’s not a criticism. When I edited newspapers, I wasn’t likely to use scarce space for a report on Honduran security. Online news means space isn’t an issue, but reporting time still is. But it does indicate how little the world matters to Canadians, unless there is an earthquake or war or big sports event.
Footnote: Ablonczyy confirmed Canada will provide $130,000 this year to assist women victims of violence, the second highest cause of death for women between 14 and 40 here after AIDS. Canada will also provide $200,000 to help implement the recommendations of the Honduran Truth and Reconciliation Commission report into the 2009 coup that removed then-president Manuel Zelaya from power.

If a government can't even provide licence plates....

I’d noticed a lot of cars driving around without licence plates, but figured it was just another aspect of the casual approach to laws in Honduras.
Nope.
I’m reading the papers each morning to improve my Spanish and learn about the country. (Though I’ve started to skip the murder stores; it was just getting too grisly day after day.)
And La Prensa just reported that some 330,000 cars and motorcycles are driving around without licence plates - almost 25 per cent of the total number of vehicles.
Because the government doesn’t have licence plates to hand out.
No new car licence plates have been available since last May. In La Ceiba, they ran out of motorcycle plates in late 2010.
The government, responsible for security and economic policy and all those important things, can’t get organized to have licence plates for people who need them.
The result is a huge hassle for drivers. Crimes don’t seem to get solved here - one report suggested a two-per-cent closure rate for murders, certainly it's less than one in 10. But there are a lot of police roadblocks to check your papers. (We learned last week that photocopies of our passports - even signed and certified by the Canadian embassy - weren’t good enough at a roadside stop. Police sent us on our way with a warning, but it was a tense few minutes for us, and everyone else in the van who feared a long wait.)
So drivers have to schlep down to the licensing office and get papers that give them the right to drive without plates.
That’s an ordeal, according to the paper. You need to get there before 7 a.m. to have any chance of getting the paperwork processed. One guy quoted in the paper had gone four times, unsuccessfully, in one week. And there are only three offices for the country, so some people have to drive for hours just to get there. It would be a three-hour trek for anyone in Copan Ruinas.
Once they’re at the centre, staff take their paperwork and drivers wait outside for hours while it’s reviewed “minuciosamente,” one of those words that is clear even if you don’t speak Spanish.
It gets worse. The permits were good for 30 days. Drivers had to keep going back each month. The government extended them to 59 days recently.
And it’s not just a headache for drivers. In the largely unlikely event witnesses decide to report a crime, they have no way of identifying the car to police.
So why can’t the government get the plates? Despite a two-page spread on the topic (La Prensa, like all the papers here, is a tab), that was never actually explained.
The man in charge said the problem has been around since 2008. The government has placed an emergency order for 150,000 pairs of plates and hopes to have them in six weeks, but that’s less than half the number needed.
He implied, sort of, that getting the plates was complicated because the government wanted to make sure there was no corruption involved in the process. But the 150,000 plates was still a direct-award contract, without competitive bids. (That's a subject for another post.)
And that still doesn’t offer any explanation for why the government can’t get its act together to issue a tender call.
I’m not criticizing the newspapers. My experiences as a stranger in a strange land has left me wondering if Canadian newspapers leave the same kind of holes, which I was able to fill in on my own.
For example, no report I’ve seen has offered any sort of real explanation for why ousted cabinet minister Harry Bloy was given a Vancouver Province reporter’s questions about a private school sent to Advanced Education Minister Naomi Yamamoto. What was he supposed to do with the document?
Or, for that matter, why managers and board of BC Rail, a Crown corporation, paid $297,000 to Liberal uber-insider Patrick Kinsella for advice on dealing with the government, instead of just talking to the minister responsible.
Both stories would baffle a Honduran newly arrived in British Columbia.
And as a newcomer, I’m not leaping to criticize the Honduran government.
But this country has a lot of problems. If the people in charge can’t figure out how to buy licence plates, it’s hard to see how they’ll solve the tougher ones.
And if citizens are stuck wasting vast amounts of time in a bureaucratic swamp, it’s one more drag on an already weak economy.
Me, I'll stick to walking.

Footnote: The photo of drivers trying to get temporary permits for their vehicles is from La Prensa.

Why didn't the defence department buy these subs?

West Edmonton Mall is selling its fleet of submarines, an opportunity that the Canadian Navy has somehow failed to seize. After all, the four submarines are cheaper than the British castoffs the navy bought, which have provided total failures.
And they apparently work.
Unlike the British subs.

And look at the pictures? Which would you buy?

'Even Jesus had a line in the sand'

Jody Paterson left the regular Monday morning devotional at her Honduran workplace not quite so enthused about the warmth and sharing.

"I get that faith brings comfort to people living in difficult times. Hondurans need God because life here on Earth is cruel and harsh for so many of them, and if you couldn't believe that things were going to improve in the afterlife you'd probably go crazy.
But maybe a little more crazy is in order right about now. All of this violence isn't God's will, it's just what happens when the rule of law is completely negated, the tentacles of the massive cocaine industry seep into all facets of life, and a government is too weak and compromised to act. Violence has been normalized in Honduras, and it seems to me that accepting that as God's will is virtually a guarantee that nothing will improve for people here."

You can, and should, read the post here.

Killer bees and a Honduran business development workshop

I’ve done a lot of business analysis exercises over the years, but never one where African killer bees showed up on the list of threats and opportunities.
I just spent two days in a Cuso International workshop for producers in Honduras, bringing together about 30 people to help them take a look at their businesses and what they can do to make them stronger.
On one level, it was familiar after years as a manager. It’s important to sit down and analyze your operations and the external factors, current and future, and come up with plans to do better.
On another, it was wildly different.
Most obviously, because everything was in Spanish. We did an early get-to-know-each-other exercise which included drawing a symbol for yourself. People did trees and suns and hearts and birds and the like. I did a question mark, because, I told them, I listened to the presentations and kept thinking “Que? Que? Que?” (Jody Paterson, my partner, drew herself leaping off a cliff. Her post on the workshop is here.)
But the challenges were also very different. The workshop - tallers they’re called here - included a few people from local NGOs, but mostly primary producers. There were several intense, darkly tanned coffee growers, some cocoa producers, furniture makers, fruit and vegetable growers and some women in a tiny honey business.
The program combined instruction with a lot of group work, with people joining others in the same field to study their businesses and do the standard SWOT analysis - strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Except here it’s a FODA analysis - fuerzas, opportunidades, debilidades y amenazas. They were seriously committed; we went from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. the first day, and started the sessions at 7 a.m. the next day, because we were running behind schedule.
The theory was that, using the analysis and considering the “value chain,” they would come up with action plans to strengthen their businesses and get to work on them.
It was effective, and fascinating. A few things leapt out.
First, they mostly weren’t as sophisticated in their analysis as a comparable group of Canadian business people. I spent time with the vegetable growers as they did their FODA analysis, and there wasn’t a lot of talk about new markets and pricing strategies and branding.
But that was realistic. If you’re growing tomatoes in a region with limited transportation and few restaurants or even supermarkets, then branding strategies are just silly. You’re selling a commodity. You could find the nicest tomatoes and charge a small premium, but organic isn’t a niche.
That was another difference. In a similar Canadian exercise, based on my newspaper experience, people would have come up with grand strategies for new products and brand extensions and multiple platforms. They would have produced a plan that sounded oh-so-clever, but was actually completely unrealistic, designed to please their masters, not produce a stronger business.
The Honduran producers weren’t so delusional. Some of the action plans won’t work out, but they were pragmatic.
Second, the producers had a sound assessment of their businesses’ positions, and what needed to happen. The coffee growers knew they needed to improve living conditions for workers, or they wouldn’t have enough of them, so their plan included better housing and food. (They also raised interesting questions about organic and fair trade certifications. These are family operations, but if their kids help with the picking they lose their fair trade certification. And more broadly, work harvesting coffee by kids keeps a lot of families out of desperate poverty. Is it really “fair” to cut them out of that work without any alternative? A school-aged boy can make $15 a day picking coffee, three times the wage for an unskilled labourer and as much as a bank teller. For a poor family, that’s a huge benefit.)
The rambutan growers knew they needed to come up with products based on the fruit. (I’d never heard of it, but rambutan is a cool-looking Asian fruit that is, according to Jody, like a lychee without the disgusting floral flavours.) Their plan included exploring wine and marmalade products, though the concept of opening export markets seemed remote.
Third, the barriers to success were often, by North American standards, small. A way of getting goods to buyers - as simple as an available truck, or car in the case of the honey producers - came up on several lists.
And fourth, the importance of the support of NGOs was overwhelming. The action plans included investments in processing equipment to add value, or technical improvements to increase crop productivity. They looked to NGOs to support those efforts.
Some argue aid encourages dependency. But North American agricultural producers benefit from a huge amount of aid - university agriculture departments doing research, government ministries providing experts and funding and marketing support (and in the case of marketing boards, protection against competition).
That doesn’t exist in Honduras. There’s no money. Agencies supported with foreign money provide the technical and financial support Canadian producers take for granted.
The vegetable producers dragged me into the group photo and made me sign the official pledge to deliver on their action plan.
I’ll let you know how it went in six months.
Footnote: And I hope the African killer bees don’t wreck the honey business. They killed two children here last week, when the eight-year-old brother of one ill-advisedly threw a rock at a hive in a tree. We are not in Kansas anymore, as Dorothy would say.

Christy Clark decides to be more like Gordon Campbell

Lively read from Harvey Oberfeld on the controversy over Christy Clark's refusal to take questions from the media at a Vancouver photo op, and new communications director Sara MacIntyre's snark-laden on-camera exchange with reporters over the question ban. (Snark-laden on both sides.)
The control-freak approach to avoiding questions from journalists or unscripted exchanges with the public is popular these days. Stephen Harper - for whom MacIntyre did similar work - is a big fan. And he is also prime minister, which might lead some to think it's not a bad tactic.
Not so good for democracy though. Though it's fair to question our performance, reporters play an important role in asking questions that the public might want answered. No one anointed the media as public representatives, but it's part of the checks and accountability of our system and not lightly to be abandoned. (And, theoretically, if the news media ask all the wrong questions people will quit paying attention to them. Which, in fairness, I note they are.)
The alternative is politicians spouting scripted platitudes and talking points.
It's an odd approach for Clark to choose. Her record in government wasn't impressive, but Clark's leadership campaign was based in part on her abilities as a politician, which had been highly rated. Her radio background and personable nature were supposed to make her an effective communicator, able to perform well in challenging situations.
Turning her into a politician like Gordon Campbell or Stephen Harper, sticking to stiffly scripted set pieces in staged settings, tosses away what was claimed as a major political asset.
The increasing distance between politicians and the people they represent, which looks much like dislike, is also damaging for democracy.
As premier, Glen Clark, like those before him, was scrummed regularly by reporters. When the legislature was sitting - a less rare event in those days - the Press Gallery pack could usually count on one or two chances a day to pose questions. Clark also wandered the legislature lawn, talking, sometimes arguing, with people.
Campbell ended all that. He wouldn't stop for questions in the hall, no matter how pressing the issues.
Instead, he introduced what the press gallery types called secret scrums. Reporters were summoned to the premier's office infrequently and waited for Campbell to emerge from an inner office and stand in front of flags and take questions. At any moment he could wave a cheery thanks and bolt away, avoiding tough topics. Campbell also wasn't one for walkabouts, since RCMP officers accompanied him for security. (Though it's hard to imagine Clark having much less need for security by the end of his time as premier.)
Of course, Campbell won three elections, so maybe the tactics work politically.
But at the same time, voter contempt for, or at least disinterest in, politics and politicians, seems to be rising.
Winning elections at the expense of a diminished democracy seems a bad trade for any responsible politician.

Footnote: In the video, MacIntyre claims that there was no release from the premier's office saying the premier would be available.
That wasn't true. Journalist Jeremy Hainsworth notes the Office of the Premier did issue an advisory at 5:34 p.m. on March 13 that said "The event will be held indoors, and photo and interview opportunities will be held after the Premier's address on the trade show floor."
Which suggests level of disorganization in the premier's office, perhaps the result of too many highly paid people rushing around each thinking he or she is in charge.
MacIntyre's testy and inaccurate response also suggests a certain panic. I did a weekly piece for Shaw TV on B.C, politics and policy and frequently had MacIntyre on, when she was the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation rep, to offer commentary. She was excellent, prepared and poised on camera and offering useful perspective. Not at all like in the unfortunate clip.
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The importance - and potential corruption - of microcredit

I spent the last two days at a workshop for small producers, mostly agricultural, in Honduras. (I'll write something in the next day or two; it was interesting, even as I drowned in a 13-hour day of Spanish immersion.)
But a key issue was access to capital, even in tiny amounts. Doug Saunders' microcredit piece in the Globe today offers a useful perspective.

Digging a hole with the Christians of Tyler, Texas

Great news, my partner said. I'm going along with a church group doing a water project to see how it works, and you can come.

CASM, the Honduran agency Jody is working for, was helping the group with the logistics. She thought it would be good to see the work, and maybe there would be a communications piece in it.

So at 8 a.m. Saturday we walked up to the Hotel Puente Maya, met a bunch of Texans and hopped in the back of a pickup truck. We dropped about half a dozen of them - and six or seven boxes of medical supplies - at the clinic in Santa Rita de Copan, where they were offering free care to all comers. (They had medical skills; it wasn't totally random.) It was market day in Santa Rita, and teens from the local school were on hand to help with the clinic, which is on the attractive, well-planted square. I practised my Spanish with a happily drunk old guy; in fact, my Spanish seems particularly well-suited to genially inebriated people.

Then back in the truck, and probably 90 minutes of steady climbing, on dirt roads, high into the mountains.

At considerable speed. Merlin, Jody's boss, was driving and he has the skills and commitment of one of those Finnish WRC rally drivers. (That is, for non-motor sport fans, high praise.)

We crossed streams, had stunning views, passed tiny houses and small towns and ended up at La Cumbre, way up in the mountains, a community of houses strung along dirt roads and trails. Up one of the trails through a coffee plantation - they are great looking plants, dense bushy, dark green foliage - and we came to the project.

Which was a hole in the ground, a medium-size hole in the ground at this point. The community water system had a reservoir higher up, but it wasn't large enough. The good people of the First Christian Church in Tyler, Texas, were here to fund and help build a second reservoir to ensure the community didn't run out of water when things got dry. The two tanks and the village would be connected with piping when it's done.

The reservoir was being dug into the hillside. It was to be a circle, about 20 feet across and four or five feet deep. That meant though, because of the slope, that the wall would be about five feet tall on the downhill side and 15 feet tall on the uphill side.

Some people from the community had been working on it. It was probably two feet deep. The Texans - a mixed group, from maybe early 30s to nearing 70, I'd guess - grabbed shovels and pickaxes and started moving dirt. There was one wheelbarrow and a narrow dirt ramp to get it out of the hole. (The kind of useful thing I would have forgotten to leave.)

So we dug too, of course. It would be remarkably lame to watch a bunch of Americans and Hondurans digging a community water project.

It was hard. The views were great, and we were high enough in the hills that it wasn't roasting hot. (Which is one reason it's such good coffee country.) But wielding a short, heavy pickaxe and trying to heave dirt out of a hole isn't easy.

The Hondurans were the strongest. They do this kind of work. But some of those Texans were real workhorses. One guy just settled into part of the hole and worked his way steadily downward.

I held my own, though I started too fast and then faded a little. And my one run at pushing the hugely heavy wheelbarrow out of the hole convinced me that perhaps that was best left to others.

A woman from the community and two young girls brought us lunch - tortillas, refried beans, spaghetti and scrambled eggs - and by the time we called it a day the hole was pretty impressive - another two feet deep, I'd say. We moved way more dirt than I thought we would, though I noticed people got quieter as the day wore on.

The Texans were taking Sunday off, but figured the hole would be dug by the end of Monday and pouring the concrete - also a hand-mix, wheelbarrow operation - would be next.

I was impressed with those people. They worked with varying amounts of strength and dedication, and occasionally seemed a little irked with each other, but they made a big dent in the reservoir, stayed in good spirits, joked with the Hondurans and welcomed a couple of Canadians hanging around. They held a bunch of fundraising events to get enough money for the supplies and worked with a religious organization in the U.S. that links volunteers and projects.

And they were impressively realistic, perhaps because some of them had been doing this kind of thing regularly for about 20 years. Some projects worked great, they said, some only got partly done, one or two had not really turned out. But they showed up, accepted whatever living conditions were at hand, worked hard during their stay and left having accomplished what they could.

Outreach, they call it, and the First Christian Church in Tyler has had a longstanding commitment to use 10 per cent of the money that comes in to help others, in their community or anywhere they see a need they can fill.

I even liked the church motto - Unity in matters of faith, diversity in matters of opinion, in all things love.

It was a good day.