WARNING TO CANADIAN CITIZENS

IN NAYARIT, COLIMA AND THE COASTS OF JALISCO

 Please share the following important information with all the Canadian citizens in your organization, area or district.

 Hurricane Season is now upon us and extends from June 1 through November 30.  The key to hurricane or tropical storm protection is preparation, and we encourage you and your family to review your personal safety practices.  By taking sensible measures before, during, and after a hurricane, many lives can be saved and property damage averted.

Keep well informed by listening to the latest warnings and advisories on the radio, television, or web sites.  Many Hurricane Centres will issue and update these when necessary.  It is also important to follow the advice of local authorities and emergency response personnel.  Note that the contact information for Protección Civil authorities in your state is as follows:

A hurricane preparedness plan includes three basic elements that are important in the threat of any severe weather event, and not just for hurricanes:

1. Maintaining a disaster or emergency supply kit;

2. Securing your home and property;

3. Having a safe place to go in the event of evacuation or prolonged utility outage.

 We would encourage you to visit the following web sites where further information is available, on hurricanes specifically and emergency preparedness in general.

Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada at: www.voyage.gc.ca  On this page, visit the Travel Report for Mexico for information on official warnings regarding local hurricanes. 
Visit the Hurricane Season section of the Global Issues page for more information on hurricanes and the latest developments: http://www.voyage.gc.ca/countries_pays/issues_enjeux/article-eng.asp?id=1088

Public Safety Canada at: http://www.getprepared.ca/knw/ris/hrr-eng.aspx

The US National Hurricane Centre at: www.nhc.noaa.gov

The Canadian Hurricane Centre at: http://www.atl.ec.gc.ca/weather/hurricane/hurricanes.html

 We would be grateful if you would pass on the contents of this letter to any other Canadian citizens you know, and have them bring their whereabouts to our attention if they are not already registered with us.

For consular emergencies, please contact the Consular Agency of Canada in Puerto Vallarta, located at 1951 Blvd Francisco Medina Ascencio #108 (Beside Coppel store, Las Glorias), Tel: (322) 293-0098 / 293-0099, from Monday to Friday, 9:00AM to 5:00PM or at vallarta@canada.org.mx. After hours, you may reach the Canadian Embassy in Mexico City via the toll free number 01-800-706-2900 (Mexico City). During week-ends, you can also call the Operations Centre of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada in Ottawa at the toll free number 001-800-514-0129 or place a collect call at (613) 996-8885.

Best Regards,

Lyne Benoit
Consular Agent

Consular Agency of Canada

Edificio Obelisco, Local 108
Blvd. Fco. Medina Ascencio #1951
Zona Hotelera Las Glorias
48300 Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco
Tel: (322) 293-0098 / 293-0099
Fax: (322) 293-2894
Email: vallarta@canada.org.mx 

 AVIS AUX CITOYENS CANADIENS

SE TROUVANT DANS LES ÉTATS DE NAYARIT, COLIMA ET CÔTES DE L’ÉTAT DE JALISCO

 Nous vous serions gré de bien vouloir faire part de l'information suivante à tous les citoyens canadiens se trouvant au sein de votre organisation, de votre région ou de votre secteur.

 La saison des ouragans est commencée et s'étend du 1er juin à la fin novembre. La meilleure façon de se protéger contre un ouragan ou une tempête tropicale est de s'y préparer et nous vous encourageons, ainsi que les membres de votre famille, à examiner vos pratiques reliées à votre sécurité personnelle. Prendre des précautions  peut éviter des pertes de vies humaines, des pertes financières ou matérielles.

Veuillez rester vigilant et informé au sujet des avis et avertissements d'ouragan émis et mis à jour par les centres de prévision des ouragans, à l’aide de la radio, de la télévision ou des sites internet mentionnés ici-bas. En tout temps, veuillez observer les instructions émises par les services d’urgence locaux.  Veuillez noter que les coordonnées des autorités de Protección Civil dans votre état sont les suivants:

Un plan d’urgence contre un ouragan ou une tempête tropicale comprend trois éléments:

- Posséder  une trousse d’urgence en cas de désastre;

- Protéger vos biens et propriétés;

- Identifier un endroit sécuritaire où vous pourriez vous réfugier lors d’une évacuation ou de pannes de service prolongées.

Nous vous encourageons à visiter les sites web suivants pour des informations supplémentaires sur les ouragans ainsi que des conseils pratiques sur les préparatifs en cas d’urgence en général.

Affaires étrangères et Commerce international Canada: www.voyage.gc.ca où vous pourrez consulter la section: “Conseils aux voyageurs” pour le Mexique pour des informations à propos des avertissements officiels concernant les ouragans. 
Vous pouvez également visiter la section Saison des Ouragans de la page Enjeux internationaux pour davantage d’informations à propos des ouragans et les derniers développements : http://www.voyage.gc.ca/countries_pays/issues_enjeux/article-fra.asp?id=1088

 Sécurité publique Canada : http://www.preparez-vous.ca/knw/ris/hrr-fra.aspx

 US National Hurricane Centre (site en anglais seulement) : www.nhc.noaa.gov

Centre canadien de prévision des ouragans : http://www.atl.ec.gc.ca/weather/hurricane/hurricanes_f.html

 Nous vous saurions gré de communiquer le contenu de cette lettre à tous les citoyens canadiens que vous connaissez, en leur demandant de nous transmettre leurs coordonnées s'ils ne sont pas déjà inscrits auprès de nous.

 En cas d’urgence, vous pouvez communiquer avec l’Agence Consulaire du Canada à Puerto Vallarta à l’adresse suivante: 1951 Boulevard Francisco Medina Ascencio #108 (À côté du magasin Coppel / Las Glorias) en composant le (322) 293-0098/ 293-0099 du lundi au vendredi, de 9h00 à 17h00 ou en utilisant le courriel suivant: vallarta@canada.org.mx. Après les heures de bureau, vous pouvez contacter l’Ambassade du Canada à Mexico au numéro sans frais 01-800-706-2900 et, pendant la fin de semaine, le Centre des opérations d’Affaires étrangères et Commerce international Canada à Ottawa en composant le numéro sans frais 001-800-514-0129 ou en faisant un appel à frais virés au (613) 996-8885.

 Veuillez agréer, Madame, Monsieur, nos salutations distinguées.

 Lyne Benoit
Agent Consulaire
Consular Agency of Canada

Be Neighborly, Go to Mexico
Andrés Martinez - Los Angeles Times
go to original

	The United States is not about to criminalize guns and legalize drugs to help out Mexico. But you can do your part to help out a good neighbor - book a trip south. Pronto.

There are several good reasons Americans should help out the Mexican economy with a trip south of the border.

Your neighbor needs your help. Do you have it within you to lend a hand? Will you book yourself a week on the beach in Cabo or Puerto Vallarta, or explore Mexico City or one of the colonial cities in the heart of Mexico? You know, for the common good.

This has been a banner decade for empathy tourism - many Americans flocking to New York after 9/11 and to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina did so with a sense of public service. Mexico now needs a similar surge.

Our neighbor to the south is having an annus horribilis, as a British monarch might say. These were never going to be good times down there, with Mexico's economy so intertwined with ours, but growing concern about war-on-drugs violence, the decline in oil prices and the advent of swine flu has further dented "brand Mexico." Adding insult to injury, Washington earlier barred Mexican trucks from coming into the United States, a flagrant violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and, as of last week, Americans crossing over to Mexico were required to have a passport to reenter the country, a change expected to deepen the slump in border towns frequented by Americans.

The tourism sector is the largest employer in Mexico and the third-largest source of foreign currency for the trillion-dollar economy, after oil exports and remittances sent home by Mexicans working in the U.S. It is estimated that the swine flu alone will cost the country about $5 billion in tourist revenue (and bear in mind that travel to Mexico was already down significantly as a result of the U.S. recession). Hotel occupancy rates in Cancun in May didn't even reach the 30% mark. The all-clear has been sounded on the virus, but no one knows for sure how long-lasting the impact on tourism will be. Mexico's gross domestic product, meanwhile, is expected to contract about 12% in the second quarter of this year.

Why should Americans care? Well, for starters, there is the national security imperative. Say what you will about Mexico, and there is plenty negative to be said, our southern neighbor has been a fairly reliable, stable and friendly partner for more than half a century, and it is in our interest to keep it that way. Our nation's political discourse may not always reflect our good geographic fortune, which we take for granted, but the United States is blessed to have Canada and Mexico as neighbors. Is there another developing nation of more than 100 million people we'd rather have on our southern flank? Put differently, how many other global powers in history have had the luxury of a long land border that doesn't need to be protected by a large standing army?

Suddenly this year, the Pentagon and many pundits on the right have been raising the specter of a potential "failed state" on our border, the result of the lawlessness bred by powerful drug cartels. The rhetoric is a bit overheated, the comparisons to Pakistan misplaced, but the concern about what is happening in Mexico, our third-largest trading partner, is laudable. We have a strong national interest in seeing Mexico remain a peaceful, ever-prospering democracy.

The importance of Mexico to the United States is a truth not often voiced, but occasionally acknowledged by deed. Mexico traditionally ranks somewhere between Jordan and Argentina on the foreign policy establishment's list of priorities. The amount of resources devoted to cross-border development or mutual security is pitiful (even in the aftermath of the anti-drug initiative known as the Merida plan), compared with development or military aid distributed elsewhere, not to mention compared with regional development transfers within the European single market.

But a far more robust commitment to Mexico does assert itself when required, as we saw during the 1990s, when the Clinton White House, bypassing Congress, made about $20 billion in Treasury reserve funds available to Mexico during that country's last financial crisis. And this year too, Mexico is proving itself to be, not unlike AIG or Citigroup, too large to fail from Washington's perspective, as the Federal Reserve has made available to Mexico a $30-billion currency swap facility, which gives that nation's central bank privileged access to credit from the Fed in order to stabilize the value of the peso.

It would improve the overall health of the relationship, and our ability to think strategically about Mexico's (and hence regional) development if presidents were more transparent about the country's true stake in Mexico (sorry, Jordan), rather than make such commitments on the sly.

The fact that the United States bears some responsibility for Mexico's current woes is another reason to invest in our neighbor's stability and prosperity.

Unlike previous financial crises that have roiled Mexico, this one can't be pinned on its macroeconomic sins. If in the mid-1990s it was fashionable to talk about the "tequila effect" to describe the global financial contagion spreading from emerging markets, this crisis is more like a "Budweiser effect," in that it was Uncle Sam's reckless insistence on living beyond his means that caused the mess. Washington, irresponsibly over-leveraged to support an unsustainable standard of living, failed to practice what it preached over the last decade, to abide by the so-called, um, Washington consensus on economic policy.

Mexico, for its part, has enacted prudent fiscal policies, shored up its foreign reserves and remained a faithful adherent to the free-trade gospel, continuing to open its economy to foreign goods and investment. The nation has also become a great deal more democratic in the last decade. Still, despite doing all the "right" things according to the Washington consensus, Mexico's economy (and currency) has been harder hit by the Wall Street-triggered crisis than the United States'. No one said life was fair.

Americans also share some of the responsibility for the mayhem unleashed by the showdown between the Mexican state and its rapacious drug cartels, as both Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Obama were right to point out in recent months. Drug users in this country are underwriting the war in Mexico - and that war is being waged largely with guns brought in from this country.

The United States is not about to criminalize guns and legalize drugs to help out Mexico. But you can do your part to help out a good neighbor - book a trip south. Pronto.

Andrés Martinez is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.