Vancouver Sunrise Bulletin 16/05/2012

Rotary Club of Vancouver Sunrise

President Matthew gonged the meeting to order and Shail recited the Four Way test for us. There were 15 members present with visiting Rotarians Gerti Gruber from RC Bad Goslein in Austria and Norm Binion from North Van plus our favourite visiting Rotarian, Shail Mahanti. Gerti brought a guest, Zuzana Mikulasova from Bratislava, Slovakia.

Rotary Moment

John recounted the tortuous path to the admission of women into Rotary. The first (failed) attempt was in India in 1950. In 1977, a Club in California, in accordance with state legislation, admitted women members and was promptly excommunicated. After several years and millions of dollars, the Supreme Court of California upheld the Club’s rights to include women. In 1986 women were officially welcomed into Rotary. Gerti told us that she was the first woman member of her club. We are proud that our own club has over 40% female membership.

Announcements

Robert: There is a Hoop-a-Thon meeting tomorrow everyone is welcome (and encouraged) to attend. Sheila is the first (and so far, only) person in the club to get pledges. Please get those pledge emails out, folks.

Hockey pool: Bill, Jim, Carlos are still in the running for the Grand Prize and so far, five members get to share the Gumby.

Member News

Everyone was happy. No news there.

Speaker: Mark LaLonde

Matthew introduced Mark who is with CKR Global Risk Assessment which consults to Canadian companies in Oil & Gas, mining and other industries. Risk is defined as the likelihood of a threat. The face of risk changing rapidly. Everything is changing, especially in the area of regulation and governance.

The first question that he asks his client is, ‘What is your level of tolerance for risk? What are you comfortable with?’ One client wants to take 50 execs to a place in Mexico where cartels are active whereas another has a meeting in Paris. One major risk area is crime. 35% of firms in Latin America report that crime is a major problem facing business.

In addition to foreseeable risk there are unforeseen game changers; Mark gave the example of Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire on 17 December 2010, in protest of the confiscation of his wares and the harassment and humiliation that he reported was inflicted on him by a municipal official, Faida Hamdi, and her aides. This incident sparked the entire Arab Spring which was fuelled by a small number of people using Twitter and Facebook.

Mark Characterized the threats as the seven horsemen of the apocalypse.

1. Rise of inter-sectarian fundamentalism, tribalism and populism/nationalism.
2. Natural resources. Water is the biggest concern. Rare earth minerals are just about all conflict minerals except those from China which are not exported.
3. Governance and corruption. We get to fine companies based upon the benefits of bribes paid. We don’t know if our local managers are paying bribes which could result in millions of dollars in fines.
4. Economic uncertainty.
5. Migration patterns. China and South Korea do not want North Korea to collapse because they would not be able to handle the influx of migrants. Migration has an impact on labour markets and political stability.
6. Shadow economy. Organized crime is 10% of the economy. Mark told us about the CEO of Hermes who was in Vancouver to research opening the Company’s first store here. She walked out of her hotel and found an illegal Hermes store operating on Robson. Mark also told us that there is a futures market in Somalian ship hijacking: you can buy shares (cash only please) in a future hijack.
7. Globalization. China has 2,000 industrial spies in Canada.

Lawrence thanked Mark for his excellent and illuminating presentation.

Thought for the week

Matthew closed with:

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

- Anaïs Nin