Caution, parental guidance suggested. This column is about sex, drugs, rock-and-roll, plus chicken and cows.
OK, I threw rock-and-roll in for literary effect, however the rest of the categories stand. I'm speaking of course about the Summit of the Americas held last week in Cartagena, Columbia.
The sex issue stems from a United States Secret Service agent attempting to stiff - like in not paying - one of the local working girls. She wasn't too happy and within hours his secret service cover had been blown into a major U.S. security scandal. The scandal has escalated as more members of the U.S. Secret Service as well the U.S. military have found that what happens in Cartagena doesn't necessarily stay in Cartagena.
Drugs, chickens and cows were also on the agenda and when it comes to these commodities, Prime Minister Stephen Harper had an equally tricky - in the literal sense - path to navigate. As expected he took the cautious road. His approach to these issues was typically too conservative, too 20th century Canadian and too blinkered.
First to drugs and Canada's role in the narcotics business. Believe it or not Canada is a big player in the drug game. As a nation, and with our prohibitive head in the sand, we inadvertently support a billion dollar trade in illegal drugs. Every one from the huge and unstoppable drug cartels to pushers on the street benefit from the hopeless war we're waging on drugs.
The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse calculates the lost-cause cost of attempting to stop the illegal drug trade at $3.4 billion a year. Two thirds of that on law enforcement, one third on direct health care costs.
Harder hit are the Latin American countries where the drugs are produced. Their costs are measured in lives lost. Fifty thousand in Mexico, 1,000 in El Salvador in the past three months.
With this evidence, Latin American leaders suggested to Stephen Harper that he should do more to solve the problem, consider legalizing the drug trade in Canada and putting the cartels - as well as the attendant violence - out of business.
Harper wriggled, saying, "There is increasing doubt about whether we are taking the best approach to doing that, but nobody thinks these transnational networks (the cartels) or that changing the law is somehow going to make them good people." For an economist that's a pretty weak argument. The objective is not to make the drug pushers good people; the objective is to make them unemployed people.
Harper's only solid response to fighting the losing war on drugs was to commit $25 million to train Central American anti-drug law-enforcement agencies. A cop out for sure and an expensive one at that.
Speaking of chickens, the other issue raised at the Summit of the Americas was Canada's anti-trade adherence to supply management, simply put, the measures we take to protect Canadian dairy, egg and poultry farmers. We started down this futile road in 1966 with the creation of the Canadian Dairy Commission, since then it's been an expensive boondoggle.
Canada wants to enter the Trans-Pacific Partnership with the U.S., Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. This is a major free-trade pact that could be a model for the world. But it means we have to come to the table with clean hands and not encumbered by protectionist legislation favoring a small and spoiled segment of the Canadian Agriculture industry.
Harper is moving cautiously on this front as well. He should move quickly, supply management is outdated and has no place in a modern market-driven economy. The Canadian beef industry is not protected and it does well. No lack of steaks at the super market and the prices are competitive with those in the U.S. But not so for eggs, dairy and poultry. Simply ask any Lower Mainlander what they buy at Costco in Bellingham, Washington, the answer, butter, eggs, milk and poultry.
The Harper government has moved to end the Canadian Wheat Board's monopoly on Prairie farmers, a good move. Now it's time to drag the dairy and feather industry in to the 21st century.
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A dj vu look at B.C. politics.
An old friend from radio days wrote to remind me about the rise of the B.C. Conservative Party in 1972. In that election, the Conservatives, under the leadership of Derril Warren, picked up 12 per cent of the vote and helped elect Dave Barrett's New Democrats to office.
He made the point that history may repeat itself. I would argue current Conservative leader John Cummings does not have the political stature of Warren, or the provincial support. Nor does current NDP leader Adrian Dix have the charisma of Dave Barrett. This is not to say there won't be vote splitting on the right or that Christy Clark will not have a problem next year. Tonight's by-election results will reveal a lot, and if anything should give Clark and her team a desperately needed sense of focus.
