BC Lotteries by the grim numbers

• Number of active gamblers in BC - buying lottery tickets or gambling at least monthly - increased 350,000 since 2007 to 1.9 million. 

• BC Lottery Corp service plan goal for coming fiscal year - recruit more than 58,000 new regular gamblers. (Buying lottery tickers or going into a casino at least one a month.)

• Gambling losses per capita - all ages - in 2005, $384 a year. This year, $468. 

• Average gambling losses per BC adult this year $718; goal for next year $725. Part of BC Lotteries plan.

• Average loss by the 4.6 per cent of problem gamblers, $4,060 a year, according to this week's Provincial Health Officer's report.

• Minimum loss needed to make the 2008 top 100 BC Lotteries losers’ list - $270,000.

The stats above are almost all from the Crown corporation’s service plan. Each year, it sets out to recruit a certain number of new gamblers and to increase the amount each person loses.

That’s why Robert Luongo is part of the marketing plan. It’s why VLTs have been installed in “gaming centres” around the province.

It’s why ATMs, which were once banned from B.C. casinos so losers wouldn’t empty their bank accounts, were approved by the Liberal government. 

Just as it’s why the government lifted the ban on alcohol on casino floors. The more people drink, the more they lose.

Online gambling was introduced in 2004 with a $70 weekly loss limit to protect people from drunkenly or stupidly sitting in front of their computers losing all their money. The government nudged that up to $120, and then in 2009 raised the weekly loss limit to $10,000.

B.C. Lotteries is doing its job. Its mandate is to increase profits. That means recruiting new gamblers every year, and increasing the average amount each person loses, year after year. It means targeting the really big losers.

And the government has changed policies to help the corporation achieve those goals.

This, of course, under the party that pledged not to expand gambling in B.C.

"I want to build an economy based on winners, not losers, and gambling is always based on losers," Gordon Campbell said. "The only way government makes money on gambling is because you lose it." 

Then Kamloops MLA Kevin Krueger said gambling expansion was immoral. "The people it hurts the most are the ones we have a responsibility to protect, such as the poor, women and abused families." 

Of course, those two aren’t around.

But Christy Clark is. When the NDP started talking about a Vancouver casino and Clark was in opposition she was dead set against any gambling expansion.

"Does this government not realize that every dollar that they pull from the economy is another dollar that the consumer won't be spending here in British Columbia?" Clark asked. "This is money that won't be going to your local grocery store, clothing store or gas station."

Extensive research showed gambling expansion would be especially bad for women, she said.

"Those studies all there that tell us over and over again that expanding gambling has a deleterious effect on women's health, on their personal safety and on their economic stability," she said. "Based on those studies, we know that."

Gambling profits, or people’s losses, help the government cover expenses. 

But the costs, for some 160,000 people who are problem gamblers or at risk of problems, are high. As they are for communities, in health care and policing social problems.

Government isn’t going to get out of the gambling business. It wants the money from all those losing bets citizens place in mini-casinos, all those foolish scratch-and-lose lottery ticket purchases.

But it’s long past time that the permanent campaign to recruit more gamblers, and take more money from each one, was replaced with a responsible gambling policy. The recommendations in the Provincial Health Officer's report offer a good place to start.

Prescription heroin and a health minister who doesn’t believe in science

Or, when do politically driven policies cross a moral line 

Health Minister Rona Ambrose has changed Health Canada rules to shut down a Vancouver research project that would test the benefits and risks of prescribing heroin to hardcore addicts.

Research in Canada and around the world has shown that prescription heroin is an effective treatment option for a small group of addicts. 

That’s not surprising. Some people face enormous difficulty moving away from heroin addiction, and research has found methadone and other substitutes are ineffective for them.

So the choice is simple. Prescribe heroin and help people manage their drug use and deal with their addiction. 

Or leave them to buy drugs on the street.

All the research has shown that - again, for a small group - prescription heroin helps the addicted person and society.

Switzerland conducted landmark research in the 1990s. About 1,100 addicts received prescription heroin. 

There was a massive reduction in criminal activity by those in the study. Employment increased once people were freed from the daily struggle to find illegal drugs. More than 80 people quit using entirely. 

And there was not one overdose death.

The Swiss government approved a permanent prescription-heroin in program in 2008. Conservative elements forced a referendum, and the Swiss - hardly known for wild social experiments - voted 68 per cent in favour of the program.

Canada has done similar research. The NAOMI project was a thee-year trial in Montreal and Vancouver that tested the effects of prescribing both heroin and a heroin substitute for confirmed addicts. (Participants had to have been through treatment unsuccessfully twice; the mean age was 40.)

The program showed prescribing heroin or Dilaudid, the substitute used in the test, worked. Almost 90 per cent of participants had entered treatment or quit using illegal heroin after one year. (Only 54 per cent of those on a methadone program achieved the same results.)

And those on the program spent far less money on drugs of any kind. The monthly median spending fell from $1,500 - $50 a day - to $400.

That is great news for everyone who has their car broken into or a bicycle stolen. People who need more than $50 a day for drugs do crimes.  

Remove that need and you reduce crime. It’s cheaper and more effective than building more jails. That should be appealing for a government concerned with reducing crime.

The Netherlands approved prescription heroin in 2004, after a study showed positive results. Prescribed heroin to an addict resulted in savings of $17,000 a year compared with methadone programs.

Any discussion of drug policy seems to skid quickly into extremes. Prescription-heroin programs are no panacea. A small percentage of users would qualify, people with deep addictions who have tried rehab and methadone but continue to buy and use heroin. Perhaps 10 per cent or less of all users.

For those people, and the community, the program would have benefits, and no negative aspects.

Ambrose says she killed the option because heroin is bad and doctors shouldn’t prescribe “dangerous drugs like heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and LSD.”

Everyone would agree a heroin addiction is bad. But most rational people would agree that managing the addictions of people who can’t quit makes sense.

And Ambrose’s reference to “dangerous drugs” is baffling. Alcohol is freely available, and is responsible for five times more hospitalizations in B.C. than all illegal drugs combined. Almost all drugs are dangerous, including prescription drugs, which kill hundreds - or thousands - of Canadians a year.

I avoid writing about motives. But why would Ambrose ignore all the evidence and opt for a destructive edict that would hurt people and communities, with no public benefit?

The Conservatives might have answered the question. 

The Conservative party sent out a fundraising letter that echoed Ambrose’s talking points. They were “shocked” to learn Health Canada had approved the heroin trials. “If the NDP or Liberals are elected in 2015, you can bet they would make this heroin for addicts program permanent,” the appeal says. “We can’t let that happen.”

Even though the program reduces the damage done by addiction, makes streets safer and helps individuals and families.

Parties say stupid or dishonest things to raise money and rally support.

But when a health minister and government put politics ahead of both evidence-based policy and human decency, a line has been crossed.

Footnote One: Ambrose’s speechwriters invoked the death of Glee star Cory Monteith in her announcement. Monteith died from a combination of alcohol and heroin use, according to the B.C. Coroner’s Service. Heroin-prescription programs have controls to prevent people who are intoxicated from receiving the drugs.

Footnote Two: B.C. Health Minister Terry Lake said Ambrose was wrong to change the rules and shut down the trial. The idea of prescription heroin isn’t new in the province. In 1994, then chief coroner Vince Cain reviewed the heroin problem. He recommended more treatment facilities, sustained help for recovering addicts and a shift to treating addiction as a health issue, not a criminal one. And he recommended prescribing heroin to people who can’t quit.

Dr. John Millar, then B.C.'s chief medical officer, completed another report on injection drug use in B.C. in 1998. “Heroin in itself is not particularly devastating,'” he found. What does more harm is the struggle to get enough money to buy it, the varying purity and dangerous additives and the sharing of needles.

Millar called for a provincial substance abuse commission to replace the fractured efforts spread across several ministries, an immediate 50-per-cent increase in detox spaces and free methadone. And he too proposed a test of providing legal heroin for those who qualify.

Postmedia stock trade shows company has lost 87 per cent of value

So what’s Postmedia worth?

A rare big stock trade last week offered a useful indication, and it’s not pretty.

When the company stock started trading in June 2011, the price was around $13 a share. Multiply that by the number of shares - about 40 million - and you have a value of $524 million. 

The trade last week was at $1.65, suggesting a value of $67 million. Which means the company’s value has fallen by 85 per cent in a little more than two years.

The trade mattered because it was large. The stock is mostly held by the big lenders who financed the acquisition of the newspaper company and Postmedia daily trades are too small to give any real indication of value.

But last Thursday, about seven million Class B shares traded hands in a single transaction, almost 20 per cent of the total outstanding.

It’s unclear who was selling or buying. The Class B shares are reserved for foreign owners as part of Postmedia’s strategy to qualify as a Canadian company. That’s critical; businesses can claim the cost of advertising in Canadian-owned newspapers and magazines as a tax deduction.

The sale, one month before the company releases its next quarterly results, at least raises questions about whether one of the original lenders that financed the deal has decided to abandon ship.

 For earlier posts on newspapers' woes, go here.

Footnote: Class B shares, foreign-owned, represent about 97 per cent of the stock, but are limited to 49.9 per cent of the votes in any matters to be decided by shareholders. It’s not credible to claim the company is really Canadian-controlled when Canadians or Canadian institutions own three per cent of the stock, and foreign lenders hold the debt, but the structure meets legal requirements.

Housing allowances show MLAs' rich sense of entitlement

This Times Colonist story on MLAs' housing allowances should make you angry.

Especially the arrogance.

Rob Shaw reports that MLAs are on track to claim $1.1 million in accommodation costs this year - $14,100 each - even though the legislature will sit just 36 days.

That’s simply wrong.

But what’s infuriating and shameful is the sense of entitlement, embodied by Liberal caucus chair Michelle Stilwell.

She told Shaw MLAs still end up spending some of their own money because the $1,000-a-month taxpayer allowance isn’t enough. (MLAs can claim $1,000 a month without providing any receipts, or $1,580 if they provide evidence they use the money for housing. Most choose not to provide receipts, which raises other questions about whether housing allowances are actually paying for accommodation.)

“You’d be hard-pressed to find somebody who isn’t spending over and above that,” said Stilwell. “Most of them are paying out of pocket.”

So why do Stilwell and her government think a disabled British Columbian should be able to find accommodation for $375 a month? Or that a family on income assistance - a parent with two children - should get no more than $660 a month?

There is a sentiment that life on income assistance should be horrible so people are desperate to get any kind of job - the ‘make-them-suffer’ school.

But many people on disability assistance aren’t likely to make a quick transfer to paid employment. Neither are many of the people on income assistance these days, as they have serious problems that make them unlikely to be hired. (Persistent multiple barriers to employment, to use the government’s term.)

There are about 94,000 people in those two groups.

And there are about 35,000 children living in households on assistance, who the government has decided should grow up in poverty and substandard housing. The research is clear that childhood poverty greatly increases the risk of a lifetime of problems and costs for the individual and society, from illness to unemployment.

Stilwell says it’s impossible for MLAs to find a second apartment for $1,000 a month. 

But she also says people income assistance should be able to house themselves, and their children, for a fraction of that amount.

It’s a glaring example of a sense of entitlement, and MLAs belief that they deserve much better treatment - taxpayer-paid - than the citizens they represent.

MLAs gave themselves much richer allowances in 2007, when they also raised their pay and created a pension plan most citizens could only dream about. 

Under the previous system, they could only claim housing costs when they were in Victoria. (Capital Region MLAs are ineligible.) The result is that most will receive at least twice as much this year as they would have under the old system.

Another result is that about 25 per cent of MLAs from outside the capital region now own second residences here, which look much liked taxpayer-subsidized investments.

The system needs reform. MLAs deserve to be compensated for living expenses when they are required in the capital, but they should be reasonable, justifiable and transparent.

Much more urgently, MLAs need to explain why they think people on income  or disability assistance should be able to find housing in Victoria for $375, when MLAs can’t do it on $1,000.

Footnote: Average pay for a B.C. MLA is now $118,000, putting them in the top four per cent of tax filers in the province. This old post explains how they got there. It's not pretty.

9/11: A licence to extend the state's power

This is the my Vancouver Sun column on the first anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Centre. More than decade later, I think it stands up well.

There's something at once wrong and frightening about the fervent celebration of the attacks on the United States one year ago.Wrong, because it rests on the false pretence that Sept. 11 was a defining moment that changed everything, for everyone.

And frightening because it is being used to justify mindless conformity, an erosion of individual rights in favour of the state -- and even war.

It was a terrible day. But most people have placed that devastating event into some appropriate place among the other terrible and joyous moments that define a life. About 40,000 children were born in B.C. last year. For those families, 2001 won't be the year the World Trade Center was destroyed; that pales beside the wonder of a new life beginning. About 315 British Columbians killed themselves last year. For those families, it will be the year that someone was lost, and something in them died, too.

The attacks were terrible. But they were not different in purpose or effect than the decades of horrors that the current generation has witnessed.

Even their scale is not beyond comparison. Some 3,000 people died last Sept. 11. Twenty times as many died when the second bomb fell on Nagasaki; twice as many died in Bhopal after the 1994 Union Carbide disaster; about the same number of Africans will die of AIDS while you are at work today.

Last Sept. 11 was an awful day, but everything didn't change because of it. We still go to work, look for happiness, slide into despair. We raise our children. Just like always. And one year later, I am much less frightened of a terror attack than I am of the governments supposedly on my side.

The state -- Canada or Afghanistan, America or Iraq -- always wants to increase its power over the people. It's not sinister; if you are in charge of keeping order, then you will want to make that task easier -- surveillance cameras on every corner, fewer legal right for citizens. But it's an imperative that means citizens must always be prepared to push back.

For a year governments have been using Sept. 11 as a licence to extend the state's power. And an uncertain public has failed to push back.

Airport security may have needed upgrading, perhaps through improved training. But a $24-per-ticket surcharge is taking $400 million a year from travellers' pockets and has wounded regional airlines and the communities they serve. The take from Vancouver alone is enough to hire more than 600 extra security staff; the need has never been demonstrated.

The federal government likewise made no effective case for $8 billion in increased security spending over the next five years, money it could never find to help Canada's poorest children or reduce the tax burden.

And now the U.S. is pressuring Canada to spend more on defence, even after a 10-per-cent increase this year. (The Americans spend $400 billion a year on their military, more than the next 25 countries combined. To match their level of per-capita spending, Canada would have to more than triple its defence budget.)

Sadly, it's not just about money. The Bush administration quickly passed the "USA Patriot Act" (the name, commanding mindless acquiescence, should sound alarm bells.) Americans lost rights they had treasured for 200 years. The right to legal representation, to a speedy and public trial, to protection fromunjustified searches -- all gone. Americans can now be jailed indefinitely and secretly, without a trial.

Canada didn't go as far. But the prime minister can now outlaw groups based on secret evidence. Police gained the right to arrest someone who has broken no law on the suspicion that person is involved in terrorist activities. You can now be jailed for refusing to answer police questions.

And then there is war. Canada fought in Afghanistan, to little obvious effect. And now we are being asked to fight in Iraq, not because of anything that nation has done, but because the U.S. believes Saddam Hussein may some day do something. This is not a war on terrorism; it's a beating for a nation the U.S. simply wishes had a different leader.

Enough. Everything did not change in a few terrible hours one year ago. We have rights and freedoms and values worth defending, and a commitment to the rule of law that should not be abandoned when a government finds it convenient.

We will betray our past and our future if we allow ourselves to be defined by a single day of terror.

Poll shows Hondurans really, really unhappy with country's direction

Hondurans are ferociously gloomy about the state of their country, according to a new poll this month. 

The poll, by CESPAD, a citizen’s pro-democracy organization, looked at voter preferences. The national elections are now a little more than two months away.

It also asked about attitudes toward government, the state of the country and democracy.

The results were grim. Only 3.2 per cent of Hondurans think the country is progressing.  Only 18 per cent think their families’ economic situation is even a little better this year than last.

The poll asked whether the current government was helping to resolve problems, making no difference or actually make things worse in the country.

The last option won - 47 per cent think the government is making things worse. Only 9.3 per cent believe the current National Party government is helping to deal with the problems.

Those are really bad numbers. It’s hard to imagine people putting up with such an unhappy situation indefinitely.

Which makes a couple of the other questions in the poll. CESPAD asked if people were satisfied with the way democracy was working. Almost 78 per cent said no; only 22 per cent were satisfied with Honduran-style democracy. (The 2009 coup is likely a factor, along with corruption.)

Three out of four favoured a national assembly to write a new constitution.

The poll also asked what kind of change is needed - how radical or sweeping.

And 73 per cent said radical changes in all areas are needed. Thirteen per cent though gradual change in all areas is needed and 12 per cent thought change was only needed in the most problematic areas.

It’s very tough to interpret those last responses.

Almost three out of four Hondurans believe radical change is needed in all areas.

But it’s not all clear what they mean by radical change. 

Radical change could be a return to a state run by the military, or socialism. It could be raising taxes and cutting spending, or it could be higher minimum wages and land re-distribution.

Or, nothing could happen.

I’ve steered clear of writing about Honduran politics. What do I know.

But the Nov. 24 elections are going to be fascinating. Voters elect the president, regional representatives to congress and municipal officials on the same day.

The CESPAD poll puts Libre and its presidential candidate Xiomara Castro de Zelaya slightly ahead, with about 28 per cent of the vote. (She is the wife of Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted in the coup.) Libre is generally seen as to the left.

That’s a huge change. Honduras has had a two-party system since democracy was restored in 1981. (Zelaya was elected as a Liberal.) it’s hard to know what the end of that traditional political structure will bring.

The National Party and presidential candidate Juan Orlando Hernández are a close second.

Hondurans might be divided on their choice for the next government.

But they are sure in agreement that the country is stalled, and big change is needed.

Sex workers after Pickton, and something I wish the media would quit doing

Another excellent story by Sarah Petrescu in the Times Colonist on cuts to services for sex workers in Victoria, despite all the findings of the Pickton Inquiry.

It’s worth reading. 

PEERS, which provides a range of outreach and other services to sex workers and those exiting the trade, has been forced to slash services and close a daytime drop-in centre and employment readiness programs. 
The problem is that the program was largely funded under a provincial government employment contract. The government wanted fewer contracts, with more controls, so it opted to award the main job program contracts to a few big players, which in turn subcontract with organizations like PEERS.

But the one-size-fits-all contract simply doesn’t work for groups - like sex workers - who need more than a brush-up on resumé writing before they’re ready to get a job. More support, more flexibility are needed. But the results are worth it, for the clients and the community.  (Disclosure: My partner was PEERS’ Executive director for three years.)

So what does the government say?

Nothing.

The Times Colonist story included this paragraph.

“In a statement Tuesday, Social Development Minister Don McRae said sex workers would still have access to employment programs. “PEERS was a sub-contractor of the contracted service providers in Victoria, who have confirmed that there will be no disruption to services as a result of PEERS withdrawing its employment-related programs,” McRae said. He did not explain how such services would be provided.”

That’s false. PEERS programs are being cut and disrupted. Other agencies are not ready and able to provide job training to groups with challenges.

Politicians, corporations, individuals - they’re all being coached to avoid interviews, where they might have top answer questions, and issue written statements. 

The statements are self-serving, uninformative and deny the public real answers.

And tactic only works because the media plays along. 

The solution is simple. The media should just say no when offered an email response and report the government or organization would not provide the minister or anyone to answer questions. (If additional email answers are needed to provide technical information or detail, that's fine.)

McRae is the minister responsible, and taxpayers pay him some $150,000 a year to do the job. When there is a matter of public interest, he should be willing to answer questions and justify the government’s approach.

Come on media. Just say no to written non-answers.

Footnote:
Victoria police were quoted in the story.
"Officers might feel the effects of PEERS’s reductions in service, “as the [sex] workers may not be as well-informed, cared for and supported, potentially leaving them more susceptible to exploitation and abuse,” said Det. Sgt. Todd Wellman, supervisor of the Special Victims Unit.

He said PEERS acts as a conduit between sex trade workers and police, building a sense of trust. “With them, we’ve helped build a safe place for sex trade workers to report crimes.”

In a recent example, police knew that a sex trade worker, who was the victim of an aggravated assault, was hesitant to report it. PEERS encouraged the woman to come forward.

“PEERS supported the worker through the process and we actually conducted our interview at PEERS, whereas we would likely not have obtained a statement from the victim [otherwise] as she was not comfortable attending the police station,” Wellman said."

So there'a s a question for McRae. Police believe the cuts increase the risk of exploitation and abuse.

Why does McRae believe they are wrong?

The luxury of turning on a tap and getting clear, cold water

Safely back in Copan Ruinas after two weeks in Canada and the northwest U.S., and still thinking about differences between the countries.

Life is generally better in North America. Schools, health care, government, income, equality - everything works better, I told anyone in the north who asked. 

But then I usually warned them, too loudly, that they had to fight to make sure things stayed that way. 

Practically, water figured in two of the best things about being back in Canada. I could stick a glass under any tap and drink clean water, impossible in Honduras.

And I could flush toilet paper away, instead of placing tidily folded - I think of it as bathroom origami - offerings in a plastic bag, to be bundled up for garbage day.

Access to drinkable water is important. We buy bottled water, five gallons for $1, which I carry back from the little farm supply store on the next block. (So far, I estimate that I have lugged a little more than three tonnes of water into the house.) 

But most people can’t afford water, or can’t get the bottles up the trails into their villages. Many drink iffy water, accepting the various sicknesses that brings. (Another reason that about 29 per cent of Honduran children under five are stunted - significantly too short for their age.)

Partly, of course, that’s because Honduras is just too poor and the government too broke to pay for working water systems. Why it’s so poor, and the government so broke, is a whole other question. Corruption, inefficiency, tax evasion, dependency, failed policies - you can make a long list of problems. (Foreigners do help with water projects, especially in rural communities. But 50 per cent fail within five years, according to an engineer speaking at the Conference on Honduras last year.)

Almost anyone in Canada can turn on a tap and get drinkable water because we decided to make that a priority. We decided to tax people based on what they could pay, hire competent staff and build water systems that served everyone. (Almost everyone - First Nations’ communities have dismal water services, and there are hundreds of B.C. communities on boil-water advisories at any time.)

People pay for water, but it’s affordable and available in their homes.

Not everyone in Canada thinks that approach is right. The less-government crew - or at least the extremists - would argue that the whole process of supplying water should be left to the private sector and the market. Those who can pay will get water. Those who can’t.... I suppose they will develop an understanding of life in Honduras.

La Bestia's victims and the desperate quest to reach North America

I’ve written about how desperate Hondurans are to make it to North America, about the risks they take, including riding La Bestia, a freight line through Mexico.

Early yesterday morning, the train derailed. The stories are still developing, but people died, were maimed and are missing. The papers say about 250 Hondurans among the hundreds riding on top and between the freight cars. One man quoted said the people who died had tied themselves to the train for safety, and couldn’t jump during the slow-motion wreck.

None of this will slow the hundreds of Hondurans who leave every day to try to get to the U.S. 

The trip was already known to be hellish. Robbery, rape and kidnapping are common along the train route (especially on the train). Many migrants are poor, and end up walking for days with no food.

And even if the migrants reach the U.S., chances of getting in are slim.

Yet the U.S. Immigration Service estimates 105,000 Hondurans set out for the U.S. each year. The U.S. Border Patrol arrests about 26,000 a year and an unknown number don’t make it that far. About 600 Hondurans a week are flown back to San Pedro Sula. Many turn around and start the journey again. (Others are recruited to work in the call-centre industry here, as they have reasonable English skills.)

A long way, I noted in a recent blog post, from the Statue of Liberty’s “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free.” Or from my grandparents’ ability to move to Canada in search of better opportunity than they had back in England.

Canada doesn’t figure as much in migrant dreams, mostly because it’s just too far away and unknown.

But a lot of Hondurans I meet are keen to work there, and ask about the possibility. (Slim, I have to say. There are about 1,200 Hondurans in Canada on two-year visas under the temporary foreign worker program.)

Last month, predatory Honduran scum exploited dreams of an opportunity in Canada, promising some 800 people in our region jobs and transportation if they were paid $500. The desperately hopeful Hondurans borrowed, sold possessions risked everything. When they showed up on the appointed day for the buses to the airport, the scammers were gone. 

Remittances from Hondurans working abroad - mostly in the U.S.,  mostly illegal - were $1.5 billion for the first half of this year. 

That’s almost 17 per cent of Honduras’ GDP. If the money stopped flowing, per-capita GDP per capita would fall from $2,260 to $1,890. (GDP per capita in Canada is just over $50,000.) 

The money sent home keeps families afloat, lets them buy a little land to farm, provides the stake for starting a small business. And the experience allows migrants to return with a new perspective and skills that can transform communities.

The Canadian arguments about immigration and temporary workers are legitimate. 

But people are literally dying for the chance to spend even a few years in North America. Allowing a few thousand Hondurans to work in Canada could make a great difference for them, and the country, at a manageable cost.

Desperate people, Canadian dreams and the lowest kind of predators

Backpacks ready for a trip to Canada that won't happen

Heartbreaking photo in La Prensa this week of devastated campesinos who had showed up in Santa Rosa de Copan expecting to start a trip that would end with legit Canadian jobs.

The best way to change your future in Honduras is to find a way to work in North America for a few years. You can send money home and save enough to buy some land or start a little business. (The second fastest way to change your future, I suppose, is the drug transport business.)

But when the would-be migrant workers showed up to board the buses that were to take them to the Tegucigalpa airport, they found out they had been ripped off. There were no buses, no waiting jobs picking apples and grapes. The office was empty.

The scam was elaborate. Radio stations ran ads about the job program, including here in Copan Ruinas. (I didn’t hear them.) The crooks had a good story about having already placed 19,000 workers. They had an office, and answered any queries or calls. They gave official receipts and itineraries. (And most of the victims were illiterate, or barely literate, and had no way to check the legitimacy.)

At the police station

Some 800 people paid about $500 each to get access to Canada. That’s a huge amount. Not only are their dreams shattered, but their lives in Honduras have been dealt a huge blow. 

José Antonio Arita, a farmer in Corquín, a remote village in the hills, told La Prensa he rushed to the job office in Santa Rosa when he heard about the opportunity. He sold his chain saw to help cover the cost. No saw means no income from selling firewood.

Jose Antonio Ramirez and his brother Hugo René both lost all their savings. The fact the offer was on the radio and the nice, fully staffed office convinced them the opportunity was real.

Until they showed up, with small backpacks of clothes and keepsakes, and found there were no buses and the office was locked up.

There are lots of arguments about temporary foreign workers in Canada, some legitimate, some not. About 1,200 Hondurans are currently in the country as temporary workers, doing jobs in the meatpacking plants and the like.

But the story is a good reminder of how desperate Hondurans are for better lives, and how easily Canada could help simply by giving them a chance to work for a couple of years.

'Nini' youth - not in school, not working - symptom of a failing country

Parents have to buy uniforms; government doesn't have to buy desks

You know a problem has become critical when it gets a snappy name.

Like the “ninis” in Honduras, young people who “ni trabaja ni estudia” - neither work nor go to school.

About 24 per cent of Hondurans between 12 and 24 aren’t in school or working, according to the latest numbers. That’s a problem on many levels. Many youths with nothing to do get into trouble - gangs or petty crime or early, ill-advised relationships. (About 25 per cent of births are to women, or girls, under 18.)

And the country’s future prospects are blighted when such a huge portion of the population lack education and opportunity. Some 582,000 youths are in the ‘nini’ camp.

A government official focused on the economic consequences - without a skilled or educated population, Honduras won’t move toward greater prosperity.

The political and social damage is just as significant. Educated people, literate, numerate and with problem-solving skills, are much more likely and able to hold government to account, participate in political life and bring social change to a country that badly needs it.

Not that the Honduran school system is producing people with those skills. It’s accepted that the education system is dismal. Schools are overcrowded and often in disrepair, teachers poorly qualified, the curriculum is outmoded and basic supplies are lacking. The education ministry can’t pay teachers on time or manage the system. (It has now been decreed that all students will learn English, ignoring the fact that there are almost no teachers capable of providing the instruction.)

It’s not just anecdotal. The Human Sciences Research Council assessed math and science skills knowledge in 45 countries, using Grade 8 students in almost all countries and Grade 9 students in Honduras. 

Honduras was in the bottom three countries, with South Africa and Botswana. In the U.S., 68 per cent of Grade 8 students reached at least the intermediate level in math and science. In Chile, 23 per cent met the standard. 

In Honduras, only four per cent. Only two students in a class of 50 reached the intermediate level in skills fundamental to competence in today’s world.

The country claims a literacy rate of 80 per cent, but in Copan Ruinas the only store that sells books offers a handful of titles aimed at tourists. Bodega Gloria put in a small magazine rack about six weeks ago, the first in town. People might be able to read, but they don’t.

The poor educational quality is probably one reason kids don’t go to school. Some families want children to help around the home or work or look after younger siblings. And it’s hard to make an argument that education opens the door to economic opportunity when jobs are so scarce.

Education is impossible for many children. Rural coverage is scarce and transportation - except on foot - non-existent. Only 15 per cent of rural students have access to education beyond Grade 9; for many Grade 6 is the highest level practically possible. About 10 per cent of the school-age population has no access at all, according to a 2010 study by the Honduran Commission of Human Rights.

And fees and strange extra charges - despite the fact that education is supposed to be free - are huge barriers for poor families. Uniforms, for example, are mandatory, and kids whose families can’t afford them stay home. There are levies for school maintenance and supplies and graduation ceremonies - even from kindergarten. Grade 6 grad fees can add up to $50; about 50 per cent of Hondurans live in extreme poverty and a wage of $6 a day isn’t bad.

That also means that many families have to choose one child to attend school, while brothers and sisters stay home, or quit early.

A generation ago, the nonfunctioning education system mattered less. Beyond some agricultural exports, Honduras was a closed economy. People stayed in their villages and practised subsistence farming.

Honduras, for better or worse, is part of an international economy today. Subsistence agriculture can’t provide for a larger population (and is seriously threatened by climate change, with projections of 30-per-cent corn crop losses in some regions within a decade).

About 582,000 ninis in Honduras equals a huge wasted opportunity, and a potentially destructive force. 

The country has a big portfolio of problems. 

But fixing the education system, and providing real access, need to be at the top of the list. Unless today's kids get a decent education, the country's future is bleaker than it needs to be.

Razor wire, guns and crime: Judging risk in the big city

Spent the weekend in Tegucigalpa, which almost always gets me thinking about crime in Honduras.

It’s hard to avoid. The small hotel we use is in a nice residential area. The architecture is quite interesting - kind of mid-20th century modern, except with a lot of stone and traditional Honduran materials.

Of course, it’s hard to get a good look. Houses are walled and driveways are blocked by sliding steel doors. The views of the houses are marred by the circles of razor wire - one, two, sometimes three rows high along the tops of the walls. The truly security conscious add electric fencing. (The best business in the city has to be the razor wire franchise.)

It does not encourage a sense of safety for a wandering pedestrian from Canada. 

But I do wander, though only in the daytime and without any possessions. (The Cuso office is a nice 15-minute walk, but I always take a taxi because it would be foolish to attempt it with a laptop.)

A big problem for any hope of a tourism industry in Honduran cities is that it’s just so hard to judge risk. In our first couple of visits to Tegus, as people call the capital, we were extremely cautious. That reflected our reading and the in-country security briefing, which focused on appropriate responses to all the bad things that could happen. (If approached by a robber, avoid eye contact, move slowly, don’t get too close and hand over everything. Be sure to have some money so you won’t make him mad. I spent the first few days ready to throw my money at any vaguely dangerous-looking stranger.)

Now we walk fairly freely, though some neighbourhoods and streets are clearly no-go zones.

We also look a lot less like potential victims. In the first months, we were anticipating danger in a way that might have invited it. As I walked toward the centre of town Saturday, a young Honduran asked me for directions. I looked liked I knew where I was going and was comfortable. 

But most tourists look less certain. And they tend to stand out - there just aren’t that many visiting foreigners. Fish swim in schools in part because there’s less risk of an individual being chosen by a predator. 

For a North American, Tegus can be unfamiliar in an intimidating way. There’s the razor wire, and the armed guards or security bars at stores. (The photo above is a typical corner store.)

The traffic is chaotic and horns sound constantly. The city was founded in 1578 and streets are narrow and twisting, with small sidewalks. Buildings are often crumbling. That’s most striking in the centro, where many of the office buildings, even the big ones, look half-abandoned, with peeling paint and rust-stained walls. 

The pedestrian mall downtown

There is a pedestrian mall leading away from the main square, but vendors with everything from shoes to toothpaste to antibiotics spread on the ground likely detract from the tone the city planners were seeking.

Yet there is charm. The setting is superb. Tegucigalpa is nestled in the hills, with houses climbing the steep slopes and a Coca Cola sign and 30-metre statue of Jesus looking down on the centre of town. There’s are historic buildings - the national art gallery is good and housed in a 400-year-old convent. (Though it was closed for a while this year because there was no money to pay staff.)  

Of course, the real victims of insecurity are Hondurans, especially the ones who can’t afford razor wire or security companies or taxis or gated communities and guards. (More and more neighbourhoods in San Pedro Sula and Tegus are gating their communities and hiring guards, even if it means blocking public roads.) There is no public transit, and the private bus and rapidito services are sketchy and robbery a risk. 

In fact, the 1.3 million people who live in Tegucigalpa live in two different worlds. The poorest live in shacks and eke out a desperate living. But there are malls more opulent than any I’ve seen in Canada; the newest has an underground garage with sensors in each parking stall and lights overhead - green shows a space is vacant, so shoppers don’t have to drive up and down the rows. By one measure of inequality - the relationship between the average income of the richest 20 per cent and the poorest 20 per cent - Honduras is the third most unequal country in the world. The richest quintile have an average income 30 times greater than the poorest. Canada’s ratio is 5.5.

Maybe that’s part of the problem. When the people with power can insulate themselves from the problems of crime and insecurity, they don’t feel any urgent need to fix them. 

Footnote: Again I stress most of the country outside the two main cities is as safe as Canada and Hondurans are keen to welcome visitors. Copan Ruinas, Tela, Utila, Lago de Yojoa - there are spectacular places to see. Come on down.

A smarter way to deal with Honduran migrants

The flood of Hondurans trying to make it to the United States has become crazy.

Honduras is opening a diplomatic office in the border city of McAllen, Texas, joining Guatemala and Mexico in trying to deal with the migrants.

Since Oct. 1, the U.S. Border Patrol has arrested 20,000 Hondurans trying to make their way to America to work. That’s more than 70 a day, every day of the week. The new Honduras office will help handle the deportation paperwork (and look after shipping the remains who died trying). The costs for all involved are huge.

The deportees get bundled onto airplanes and flown back to San Pedro Sula at the rate of about 600 a week. Many turn around and start the journey again.

And those are just the people who get caught. Remittances from Hondurans working outside the country - mostly in the U.S., and mostly illegal - were $1.5 billion for the first six months of this year. 

That’s about 16.7 per cent of Honduras’ GDP. If the money stopped flowing, GDP per capita would fall from $2,260 to $1,890. (GDP per capita in Canada is just over $50,000.)

Arguably, the best thing that could be done to improve life for Hondurans in the near term would be to allow a lot more workers into Canada and the U.S., in a much safer way.

The journey now is incredibly dangerous. A main route involves crossing Guatemala and southern Mexico and piling on to La Bestia, a freight train, riding on top of and between cars. Gangs demand $100 from each passenger at stations along the line. People are killed and kidnapped. 

Hondurans keep on making the trek. The U.S. immigration office estimates about 105,000 Hondurans leave for the U.S. annually.

It’s too much to expect open borders. But the U.S. has sure gone a long way from the Statue of Liberty’s “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free.” 

Canada is no more welcoming, as David Suzuki’s recent comments that the country is full indicate, although there are few hundred Hondurans in the country under the temporary foreign worker program.

The money sent back from the U.S. keeps families afloat. Farming families buy land; people fix their houses and start businesses. 

And, based on an anecdotal sampling, my impression is that Hondurans come back from the U.S. with new skills and attitudes that help them start and build businesses. 

That might reflect the kind of people who choose to head off to America in the first place. But it might also show that many Hondurans come home once they have achieved their goals, bringing attributes that strengthen their country.

My four grandparents set off for Canada because they didn’t have opportunities in England. They were welcomed a hundred years ago. Today, they wouldn’t be allowed into the country.

There are legitimate concerns about the effect on the employment market of even foreign workers, legal or not, and worries about criminal elements.

That’s about it in terms of pragmatic issues. People living off the grid aren’t big consumers of government services.

The best solution, or course, is to deal with corruption and crime and poor education and all the barriers that keep Hondurans from building better lives in their own communities.

Meanwhile, coming up with a way to let Hondurans spend a few years in Canada or the U.S. to support their families, accumulate some capital and see new ways of doing things might be a good way to support this country.

How to save newspapers

I’ve painted a grim future for newspapers in the last few posts.

So what can be done?

One option for companies is to cash out. Cut costs, raise rates, make as much as possible for and then sell the assets and walk away. 

But let’s assume owners see value in the brands. Postmedia took in $830 million last year and generated positive cash flow. If newspapers can slow the revenue decline, trim expenses to fit a new model and find new audiences, they might have a viable, though much smaller, future.

First, newspaper managers have to admit they’re in big trouble and the business model is broken. Denial and delay kill companies. 

That means planning for a future without a printed product. Postmedia likely spent about $210 million last year printing and distributing newspapers - about one-third of operating expenses. The same information could be delivered online or through mobile devices for a tiny fraction of that amount. Maybe print papers will survive. But I doubt it, and it’s foolish not prepare for the alternative.

And that also means planning for a future with much less revenue. Newspapers, in their heyday, faced limited competition and benefited from barriers to entry.

But in the online world there are countless competitors and new ones emerging every day. Revenues are going to be lower. That means coming up with a new business with a much smaller cost base. (The Seattle PI, online-only for three years, has a 12-person newsroom.)

Second, newspapers have to figure out the distinct things they can offer to attract and retain readers. Newspaper websites are still a grab bag of content, at their base not much different from the print versions of two decades ago. A little entertainment, a little world news, a lot of local coverage organized along traditional lines.

But there are lots of great entertainment sites, and fine places to get world news. There is no reason for readers to go to their local newspaper website.

If newspapers don’t figure out what they want to offer, they can’t cut costs intelligently and ensure their most valuable coverage is protected.

Third, they need to experiment. When I left the Times Colonist for Honduras in 2011, we had the traditional newsroom cake and I got to offer advice. What we’re doing isn’t working, I said, which gives a great freedom to test bold, new experiments. There is little to lose. Try wild things.

Where are those experiments? Lay copies of Canadian daily newspapers from today and 15 years ago down side-by-side and they are eerily similar, despite the dramatic loss of readers. Look at newspaper websites across the country and you find sameness. 

There are small interesting efforts. The Vancouver Sun has developed useful information databases as way to be more valuable to readers. The National Post has decided opinion and analysis are its strengths.

But mostly newspapers have continued with a uniform model that has been in trouble for at least 15 years. Postmedia’s 10 newspapers could test different content, or ways of getting people to pay. They don’t.

What experiments are worth trying?

• A truly overwhelming emphasis on key local content is an obvious approach to test. That would mean making sure all resources are focused on community coverage that matters most to readers. Anything else just wouldn’t get done.

• Focusing on context and commentary, while creating stars, is worth trying. If a newspaper has the best political columnist, or a specialized reporter, then he or she needs to be promoted as a big reason to read. Newspapers have done a lousy job of selling the quality of their people. And when news is shared in Twitter within minutes of it happening, maybe context and commentary are things people will pay for.
• It would be good to see a newspaper experiment with being a deep information resource. Report the political news, but also post the videos of the scrums and the tapes of interviews, the key documents and the Hansard transcripts and comments from other media. Put the city council agendas and the video feed of the school board meeting online. Create crime maps. See if people value more raw material.
• Some paper should try the celebrity/scandal/outrage model, although I’m not sure it would work in Canada.
• La Presse’s experiment in planning for a paperless future is worth watching. It’s spending $40 million to develop a totally new product for tablets. There is a separate newsroom with about 100 people working on the project. 
• A newspaper based on reader-generated content would be a good experiment. One of my old employers is launching four community newspapers in Liverpool, and content will come almost entirely from readers. Trinity Mirror has hired 20 community content curators for its papers to handle readers’ photos and stories. People spend time reading each other’s work on Facebook; why not on a newspaper website. (Especially edited and properly presented.)
• Someone should try a premium product - a brand extension - at an extra cost. Promise special information, hire a staff and charge readers. (Crikey, an interesting Australian experiment, offers news and analysis and has found a niche, with some 16,000 paying customers.)

I’d bet on local, commentary, stars and reader-generated content and make determined spending cuts on anything that didn’t support those areas.

But what’s needed are dozens of experiments, driven by a mix of desperation and hope. And not just in content in presentation and delivery.

The clock is ticking. 

Footnote: Aaron Kushner’s experiment with the Orange County Register is one of the boldest. He bought the paper and has spent heavily adding newsroom staff and content, counting on readers to pay much more for the paper. The experiment is not likely to be duplicated in Canada.