Note from the Editor - Canadian Justice?
Peter Moore
Canada has made a reputation for itself in the Americas and worldwide as a country with a fair judicial system willing to share its experience with those who are reforming their own systems. In Jamaica, Canada is working with the authorities to improve the capacity of the justice system and develop alternative dispute resolution.In Haiti, Canada is working with the Ministry of Justice, the judiciary and the penal system. In Peru, Canada has helped to establish an ombudsman able to monitor the rule of law and promote and protect human rights. Millions of Canadian aid dollars are going to ensure citizens in these and other countries are fairly treated, tried in a timely way, have equal treatment before the law, are considered innocent until proven guilty, and able to review the evidence offered by prosecutors in order to conduct their own defense. In Canada, these are considered basic rights and on a moral level, Canadian values.
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Ecuador's Mineral Crossroads: Canada's Commitment?
Ian Harris
Ecuador’s Constitutional Assembly surprised the mining industry on April 18 when it passed its mining mandate. This mandate supersedes the mining law and international investment agreements under which mineral concessions were granted and investments made. The document lays out provisional regulations for mining activities and will remain effective for 180 days, or until a new mining law can be elaborated.
President Rafael Correa has explained that the mandate is necessary to allow the government to get its house in order and ratify new regulations so that responsible mining can proceed unimpeded.
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No Consensus on PEMEX
Olga Abizaid
A modern, transparent, sustainable, more competitive and efficient company is everybody’s desired outcome from a reform of Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), Mexico’s state-owned oil company. It is in the fine print, however, where parties diverge and where political calculations begin to play a role. Indeed, for some time, all major stakeholders have pointed to the many challenges facing PEMEX, recognizing that the status quo is not sustainable. Despite being the tenth most important firm in the field worldwide according to its revenues —estimated in 2008 at approximately US$97.4 billion by Forbes— PEMEX is losing ground vis-à-vis other companies. Burdened by a stringent tax regime, an onerous collective agreement with the union, the lack of management autonomy and transparency, increasing debt obligations, as well as an insufficient budget to undertake the investments needed in maintenance, infrastructure and research, PEMEX has seen its crude oil reserves, production and exports dwindle in recent years.
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Will Millions More People in Poverty Really Change Agricultural Policies?
Focus on Haiti
Amélie Gauthier
Public debate on how to help poor countries generally focuses on how much aid rich countries give as a share of their own economies. In 1970, the UN General Assembly agreed on a target of 0.7 per cent – proposed by Canada’s Lester Pearson – for rich country donations. Canada has never met this target and there appears to be no analytical basis for it. Perhaps more importantly, the evidence suggests that rich countries can have a larger impact on reducing poverty in the developing world by aiming for other targets. For example, rich countries could aim for expanded international trade and investment with poor ones, even though this would mean fewer photo ops than new aid programs.
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Canada and Latin America: Rocks Ahead?
Carlo Dade
Eleven months since Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s visit to Chile launched Canada’s new foreign policy focus on the Americas, and the government has only now approved a Memorandum to Cabinet, assiduously and arduously prepared by the Department of Foreign Affairs, outlining exactly how this strategy will be realized. However, as Parliament leaves for summer recess in anticipation of a fall election, two new developments in the region, in addition to the commodities shock and food crisis, will profoundly impact the government’s desire to re-engage in the hemisphere and need to be given some consideration over the break.
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Securing Health Services in Guatemala for the Families of Migrant Workers
Barbara MacLaren
Guatemalan migrant workers who travel to Canada for work receive provincial health care, but the families they leave behind have little or no access to healthcare. The Guatemala office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has launched an independent health program with a private healthcare provider to address this gap for migrant workers to Canada. Initiated from a partnership between the IOM and private Guatemalan health care provider Empresa Promotora de Servicios de Salud, the program was created in order to improve access to basic health care services for migrant families, while empowering the migrant workers to improve their financial skills and know-how. Families of migrant workers often spend a large proportion of the remittances received to pay outstanding loans and buy food and clothing. Finding the money to meet family health and education needs can often be difficult.
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Scratching the Surface of Social Protection for Migrants
Eleanor Sohnen
Estimates place more than 28 million Latin Americans and Caribbean peoples living outside their country of origin. Although 79 per cent of migrants from the region go to high-income OECD countries, according to Dilip Ratha of the World Bank, migration researchers and development and social policy specialists are increasingly focusing on South-South migration flows in the Americas: Nicaraguans to Costa Rica, Paraguayans to Argentina, Bolivians to Chile, Haitians to the Dominican Republic. Much remains unknown about migrants’ access to social services and the portability of social security and health benefits across the region.
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Mexican Military Not a Long-term Solution to Drug War
Alejandro Sánchez Nieto
Estimates place more than 28 million Latin Americans and Caribbean peoples living outside their country of origin. Although 79 per cent of migrants from the region go to high-income OECD countries, according to Dilip Ratha of the World Bank, migration researchers and development and social policy specialists are increasingly focusing on South-South migration flows in the Americas: Nicaraguans to Costa Rica, Paraguayans to Argentina, Bolivians to Chile, Haitians to the Dominican Republic. Much remains unknown about migrants’ access to social services and the portability of social security and health benefits across the region.
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News Briefs

• Peru FTA signed, Colombia next?
• Mexican government trains Mexican union leaders living in the U.S.
• South American leaders form Unasur
• INTERPOL releases forensic report on FARC computers seized by Colombia

Facts and Figures

• Agricultural Land Available