Three years after its approval by cabinet, a panel of transportation managers has convened its inaugural meeting. The Commodity Supply Chain Table had been promised in 2011: “It has taken three years to get action on this one”.
The Department of Foreign Affairs is attempting to explain its purchase of a luxury diplomatic residence in a Miami suburb where celebrity neighbours include A-Rod and Jeb Bush. Disclosure of the country club estate comes as authorities attempt to sell foreign property under an austerity order from the Department of Finance.
“It is a very pricey location,” said Audrey Ross, a Miami realtor; “This is a great address. It’s a very luxurious lifestyle for foreign nationals.”
Louise Léger, chief of the Canadian consulate in Miami, did not reply to Blacklock’s interview request. Asked if she had lived in the multi-million dollar home, Léger did not comment. In an earlier foreign ministry commentary Léger said her duties in Florida included “sharing Canada’s story of sound fiscal management”.
Léger is a career diplomat and former Canadian ambassador to Costa Rica posted to Miami as Consul General in 2009, according to records. That same year, the property was purchased in Coral Gable’s Country Club district for $1.9 million. The consulate leases office space in a downtown Miami tower a 20-minute drive from the suburban getaway.
The home at 3801 Riviera Drive features seven bedrooms; six bathrooms; a swimming pool and a municipal tax bill of $28,000 a year. Neighbours in Coral Gables included Pulitzer Prize-winning humourist Dave Barry; NBA executive Pat Riley, president of the Miami Heat; disgraced Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez; and former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who sold his comparatively modest $775,000 Coral Gables home last year.
“Riviera Drive is one of the top three streets in Coral Gables,” said Ross. “Beautiful neighbourhoods; the most expensive homes in Dade County are here; gated communities; some of the best private schools in south Florida.”
Authorities in Ottawa said they considered the lavish home, now listed for immediate sale, as a necessary purchase for taxpayers: “At $1.9 million the price compared favourably with other shortlisted properties with asking prices between $2.2 million and $2.7 million,” a foreign ministry spokesperson said; “It was close to the Chancery for access in an emergency.”
Realtor Ross said the Government of Canada picked a good time to sell the house: “The market is very active at the moment,” she said. “We have an influx of Venezuelans coming here at the moment. Miami is on everybody’s radar.” List prices in Coral Gables, Florida’s self-described “City Beautiful”, currently average $2.1 million.
Cabinet in a March 29, 2012 budget notice said diplomatic residences abroad would be sold to reduce costs. Confidential records show the foreign ministry was spending $208 million a year on real estate at the time.
Documents indicate in the year immediately preceding the austerity order, the department bought $178.3 million in new diplomatic properties abroad including $15.6 million in real estate in Bogota, Boston, Port-au-Prince and Prague; and $28 million in new purchases in Mexico, Pretoria and other cities.
Records also show two-thirds of foreign missions sold to date went to bargain hunters, selling for less than their appraised value, including a $26 million mansion in Dublin that went for $17 million; and a heritage home used by a former Buffalo, NY trade commissioner that sold last year at a $1.2 million loss.
By Paul Delahanty 
New federal rules on earthquake protection are “overkill”, says the Insurance Bureau of Canada. Insurers said a requirement they set aside billions in additional reserves in anticipation of disastrous quakes in B.C. and Québec will impact consumers.’Two simultaneous earthquakes are unlikely’.
Cabinet is approving new issues of collector Royal Canadian Mint coins in an order dealers caution may help sink the market. The secretive order allows the Mint to strike a new $1,250 coin and a $1,000 issue: “They are sucking out the value for collectors”.
A Supreme Court judgment upholding union rights by Walmart employees may be a hollow decision, a legal analyst tells Blacklock’s. The retail giant was found in violation of the Québec Labour Code for closing its Jonquière store after workers certified a bargaining agent: “If you unionize, you lose”.
Canada appears powerless to stem the disastrous spread of the mountain pine beetle, blamed for destroying thousands of acres of forest. A new federal assessment concludes the beetle continues its eastward flight from B.C.: “There is no reason this will stop”.
In 1968 the government passed a Narcotic Drugs Act to pursue a “vision of a drug-free society”. Thousands of people were jailed; even simple possession of marijuana was punishable by up to six months’ imprisonment. Drug testing was punitive and commonplace and treatment was “based on obtaining complete abstinence”, noted a Senate report.
The country was not the U.S. but Sweden. The scheme worked; marijuana use by young Swedes fell to 9 percent, less than half Canada’s comparable rate.
Few analysts ever mention Sweden in our national debate over marijuana policy. Discussion is coloured instead by the politics, religion and demography of the U.S. Even the title of Paula Mallea’s book The War On Drugs is an American invention.
Drug policy is complex; it’s been the subject of seven parliamentary committee reports and commissions in the past thirty years. It’s also divisive. No government has achieved any consensus, though Mallea notes most Canadians might agree simple possession should not be a felony.
Mallea has worked as a defence lawyer for drug defendants in Manitoba and Ontario. She recalls one client, Jane, who lost her job after pleading guilty to smoking marijuana at a house party: “I expect she has not worked at a decent job since, much like thousands of others across the country, because her criminal record will be held against her.”
“You would think that someone who has defended legions of drug offenders in criminal court would have formed a substantial and sophisticated opinion on the War on Drugs, but you would be wrong,” Mallea writes. “I knew it was a cruel and wasteful system, but the question of what to do about it never surfaced long enough to produce an informed opinion.”
War On Drugs is constructive but speaks mainly to the like-minded. “Drugs are just drugs,” writes Mallea; “Why did we think it appropriate to criminalize people for ingesting substances that we disapprove of, even when there was no victim and no violence involved?”
Well, yes. But we also punish people who do not pay parking tickets or sell milk off-quota. The author cites with approval a 2002 Senate report that recommended legalization of marijuana, but fails to mention the recommendation came with a warning: “An exemption regime making cannabis available to those over the age of 16 could probably lead to an increase in cannabis use for a certain period.”
Our drug debate is coloured by selective statistics, anti-Americanism and blanket assertions camouflaged as fact. At recent hearings of the Commons health committee former Victoria councillor Philippe Lucas asserted marijuana smokers were just smarter than everybody else – a claim that angered MP Terence Young, Conservative of Oakville:
Canada doesn’t have the drug laws we do because of evildoers in Parliament or vast right-wing conspiracies. We have them because opinions are hardened on both sides, and politicians see no profit in devoting the time and deft touch required to build a consensus – or investigating how it works in Sweden.
By Holly Doan
The War On Drugs: A Failed Experiment by Paula Mallea; Dundurn Press; 256 pages; ISBN 9781-4597-22897; $22.99
Homeowners and property managers face the prospect of rising insurance costs beginning in 2015 following an obscure federal order on earthquake reserves. Insurers have been told to set aside billions of dollars in new reserves in case of catastrophic quakes in two regions of Canada. Access to Information documents show insurers privately warn the regulations are costly and needless: “We worry about the impact on consumers”.
A museum chronicling mankind at its worst is hiring consultants to determine why tourists will come for a visit. The Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg issued a contracting notice for research on visitors’ thoughts and impressions after its scheduled opening September 20: “We’re not here to show horrible things”.
A federal board violated the Copyright Act by selling millions of dollars’ worth of commercial data for $759, says a Calgary businessman. The Canada-Newfoundland & Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board is accused of selling material from Canada’s largest private collection of marine seismic maps: “It is perverse”.
Canadians are holding onto their wallets this summer with a majority minding their savings or cutting spending, according to Chartered Professional Accountants research. The survey also signaled a sharp decline in spending on home renovation: ‘I can’t afford it’.
Shoppers Drug Mart Corp. has won a legal battle against an ex-consultant it accused of masterminding a million-dollar scheme. The Supreme Court cleared the way for Shoppers to pursue its former contractor for misappropriated payments: ‘It operated in Ponzi-like fashion’.
Managers and accountants rate Canada Revenue weak on enforcement with scorn for toothless treatment of offshore tax avoiders, the department’s own research shows. The findings are in a $149,000 study commissioned by management: “As soon as tax lawyers are brought in by the wealthy, the Canada Revenue Agency backs off”.
New regulations will see thousands of Canadian lab workers fingerprinted and subject to criminal background checks as an anti-terror precaution. The Public Health Agency said employees with access to deadly bacteria and viruses must be scrutinized: ‘The damage related to a SARS outbreak is 200 times the cost of these regulations’.
A Senate panel conducting landmark hearings on the environmental impact of farm chemicals should report to the public this fall, officials say. Senators aim to complete and publish findings on bee mortality and pesticides after Parliament returns from its summer recess September 15: “It’s up to you guys”.
