A tour of a hurting New Orleans

PHOTOS: BOB FIFE (CTV) AND PETER HARRIS (GLOBAL)

Photos show the devastation still felt from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans's Ward 9.

For reasons not entirely clear to us, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not opted to do any public tours of areas of New Orleans still devastated nearly three years after Hurricane Katrina put the city under water.

He did, to be fair, dine with presidents Bush and Calderon this morning at a well-known restaurant called Dooky Chase, not far from a flood-condemned housing project. But as far as we know, no time has been set aside for Harper to do a more expansive viewing of New Orleans.

However, with some help from the logistics crew at the PMO and a local driver recruited to ferry journalists around this summit, several of us went out early this morning to see Ward 9, the worst-hit area, still struggling to rebuild.

Dwayne, our bus driver, is from East New Orleans, a father of six. His house was under 12 feet of water; he had to leave New Orleans and settle temporarily in Mississippi, then Atlanta before returning to rebuild his life and his community. The first thing they rebuilt was the church, he said, and the homes of what he genteely called "the elders."

He took us from our hotel up Canal Street and then we headed east. One of us on this trip, Peter Harris of Global TV, was here for nearly two weeks covering the immediate aftermath of Katrina. He showed us where boats had been parked; he directed our eyes to markings still on houses, showing emergency crews where bodies and gas leaks were.

As we headed into wards 7 and 8, we saw schools and houses still boarded up and abandoned. The water-line marks, some as high as the second storey, are still visible.

Then we headed over the bridge to Ward 9, which is still the site of wreckage and devastation. Dwayne told us that it's a slow process, often involving three levels of bureaucracy. Trailers and temporary homes dot the area.

But it's right near the rebuilt levee where the damage still is staggering. All that's left of once-vital areas are foundations, sidewalks and the occasional porch or fence. Weeds and flowers grow through the cement. It's incredibly quiet.

Dwayne took us down his street, where his home was rebuilt after about six months. He showed us his parents' place just down the street, still abandoned. "Still just gutting it out and cleaning it up," Dwayne explained.

He took us to his rebuilt church, St. Paul the Apostle, a Catholic congregation. "I"m real proud of this church," Dwayne said, hoping to let us in and see it, but it was too early and the place was locked up. Then we went out back to the school, which once had 600 students in 14 classrooms, from kindgergarten through Gr. 12. It's still being rebuilt.

As we were driving back to the hotel after the all-too-brief, 90-minute tour, Reuters reporter David Ljungren, who was the force behind getting this side trip organized, asked Dwayne how the city is mentally adjusting, three years later.

"When it rains still, a lot of kids have trouble," he said. Dwayne explained how even he had a hard time coming back, seeing what had happened to his beloved city. The hardest thing, he said, was to have members of close-knit communities spread out all over the United States in the immediate wake of the damage.

As we neared our hotel, just 10 or 15 blocks from the summit site, we saw a little tent city set up under the Highway 10 overpass; dozens and dozens of little tents. We were told these are people who still haven't found jobs or accommodation after Katrina.

"It does take a toll on you," Dwayne said.

It does indeed. And it's a shame, we agreed, that our Prime Minister didn't get to see all of this while he was here.

Update: As it turns out, Harper did get a tour of the Ninth Ward late today. Canada's ambassador to the U.S., David Wilkins, took the Prime Minister for a brief, 10-minute look around the area, according to PMO spokesperson Dimitri Soudas. Our understanding is that it was added to the PM's agenda late in the day.

Bush hangs with Harper

It wasn't the newsiest of encounters, but we did get a chance today to see President George W. Bush and Stephen Harper hanging out together. We learned that New Orleans was Harper's father's favourite city and that Bush seems to really like the Canadian Prime Minister.

Here's a full transcript of the brief show for reporters, with pictures.

 

NDP has "Three Amigos" meeting covered

Those New Democrats think of everything.

Every Canadian reporter here to cover the "three amigos" meeting here in New Orleans has arrived at the fancy boutique hotel to find an envelope from the NDP awaiting them in their rooms.

"Welcome to New Orleans!" states a letter from NDP MP Peter Julian, who also happens to be staying here at the International Hotel. Quite the coincidence -- I'm wondering how he knew where we were staying, since most of us just found out this morning where the PMO had booked us, when we checked in for the trip.

The letter goes on to explain how the NDP has been trying to stop the Security and Prosperity Partnership -- the agreement to encourage more co-operation between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, which critics say is a back-door strategy toward North American integration.

The NDP's package for reporters includes a little anti-SPP cartoon put together by the Canadian Labour Congress.

 

Lessons from the south

Thanks to the transparency and openness of the White House, we are getting details of what Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be up to in New Orleans next week at the "three amigos" summit. Here in Ottawa, we probably wouldn't get a schedule like this until an hour or two before the events... maybe a day earlier if we're lucky.

As well, U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins, in the same spirit of openness, has invited Ottawa reporters to a post-summit briefing lunch at his residence next Wednesday, the day after the New Orleans summit. Say what you like about the Americans, but you have to admire their professionalism about media relations.

Monday, April 21

1:55 pm
THE PRESIDENT meets with the President of Mexico
CDT Windsor Court Hotel | New Orleans, Louisiana
POOL AT BOTTOM

3:10 pm THE PRESIDENT meets with the Prime Minister of Canada
Windsor Court Hotel | New Orleans, Louisiana
POOL AT BOTTOM

6:30 pm
THE PRESIDENT makes Remarks at a United States Chamber of Commerce Reception
Gallier Hall | New Orleans, Louisiana
POOL FOR CAMERAS; OPEN FOR CORRESPONDENTS

7:30 pm
THE PRESIDENT participates in a Dinner with the President of Mexico and the Prime Minister of Canada
New Orleans Location | New Orleans, Louisiana
CLOSED PRESS

Note: THE PRESIDENT will participate in a Greeting with the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of Mexico upon arrival. (POOL COVERAGE)

Note: THE PRESIDENT will view Entertainment after dinner. (STILLS, POOL TV, & PRINT POOLER)

Tuesday, April 22

8:10 am
THE PRESIDENT participates in a Breakfast with the President of Mexico and the Prime Minister of Canada
New Orleans Location | New Orleans, Louisiana
STILLS AND POOL TV AT TOP

9:20 am
THE PRESIDENT meets with North American Competitiveness Council
Gallier Hall | New Orleans, Louisiana
STILLS AND POOL TV AT TOP

10:25 am
THE PRESIDENT meets with the President of Mexico and the Prime Minister of Canada
Gallier Hall | New Orleans, Louisiana
STILLS AND POOL TV AT TOP

11:35 am
THE PRESIDENT participates in a Joint Press Availability with the President of Mexico and the Prime Minister of Canada
Gallier Hall | New Orleans, Louisiana
OPEN PRESS

May-MacKay faceoff off

Update to a previous post...

Turns out that Canadians are just going to have to wait a little longer to see Greens Leader Elizabeth May face off against Defence Minister Peter MacKay on a public stage.

MacKay, it seems, never confirmed his appearance at the American Bar Association event in New York and next week he's going to be a little preoccupied with the NATO meeting in Bucharest. So he's a no-show. May is still going, however. It's a panel discussion on global warming and Arctic sovereignty.

May, MacKay faceoff ... in New York?

Many believed that Green Party leader Elizabeth May made a strange strategic decision when she opted to run in Nova Scotia in the next election campaign - up against Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

Well here's another strange twist in the tale. May and MacKay are finally going to be on a public stage together in two weeks - in New York, at an American Bar Association gathering. Perhaps they're both thinking, in the words of the old song, if they can make it there, they can make it anywhere.

The two have been booked as panelists in a "showcase program" on Thursday, April 3 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan, not far from Times Square.

The subject of the discussion is Arctic sovereignty.

Here's the blurb on the ABA website: Global warming can make the Northwest Passage the shortest route between the Atlantic and the Pacific and has accelerated claims to the Arctic’s potentially vast mineral resources. The U.S. considers the straits international waters. Canada has reaffirmed its claim of internal waters and is reinforcing its military presence there. Senior officials from both countries will debate this environmentally and strategically sensitive issue.

View from the Hill: Obama vs. Clinton

I don't normally put hidden messages in my stories (i.e., using the first letter of each paragraph to send cries for help), but I did insert one in an Ideas piece on Saturday.

Some people have spotted it - Deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff clearly favours Barack Obama in the Democratic race; Bob Rae, the former Ontario premier, seems to lean toward Clinton. Or at the very least, Rae's not as impressed with Obama as some Liberals are.

Actually, this Obama-Clinton divide is turning into a bit of a political Rorshach test for me when I'm talking to Liberals. I'm finding that the political romantics are Obama supporters. Ajax-Pickering MP Mark Holland, who actually went to an Obama rally in Nevada earlier this year, waxes lyrical about Obama. (Here's a link to something Holland posted on Facebook about his experience.

London North Centre MP Glen Pearson is also an Obama fan.

Those who are more politically hardened, the more battle-scarred Liberals, lean to Clinton. They like her practical realism. They like her emphasis on policy. They like that she's been through the wars of her husband's years in office and emerged to run her own campaign.

The "romantic" Liberals - some call them naive - are fans of risk-taking in politics and believe you can survive mistakes. The realist Liberals - perhaps with wisdom borne of experience - are more risk averse. Anyway, it's probably too simple a distinction, but so far, it seems to hold.

***

Still on this same theme, Liberal leader Stephane Dion was at a Star editorial board meeting on Friday and he was very careful not to declare any favourite in the Democratic race.

He did say, however, he was impressed by how globalization had turned this race into an international affair; how many people are following this race as though it was their own.

To take that just a little further, isn't it interesting how the latest campaign "gaffes" or missteps for Obama have been international in scope? There's the spot of bother he had with Canada, and then there was campaign adviser Samantha Power, talking to The Scotsman, who referred off the record to Clinton as a "monster."

I'm sure there's a master's journalism or politics thesis in there somewhere, about how off-the-record comments beyond the U.S. borders have been Obama's major headache.

By the way, Samantha Power is well acquainted with Ignatieff, from their days at Harvard together. Here's a link where readers can click to hear several presentations/seminars they have done together.

U.S. ambassador spills the beans

The U.S. Ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins, has given an interview to CBC Radio, saying that there was "political interference" from Canada in the presidential race.

Harper has just said in the House that he "won't comment on rumours" and is apparently leaving it up to the bureaucracy to investigate.

Prime Time for Jack Layton

New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton will be on CNN tonight, on the Lou Dobbs show, to talk about the Canada-Obama affair. U.S. media are all over this story today.

Which explains why Liberal leader Stephane Dion kicked off Question Period in the House today with . . . the Cadman-bribe controversy.

Tense and ugly affairs

Last night, BlackBerries in Ottawa were buzzing when CBC and CP confirmed that Ian Brodie, the Prime Minister's chief of staff, was indeed the source of all the trouble for Barack Obama's "Canada problem" in the U.S. presidential race. This is huge. We are expecting reverberations today.

Readers of this blog will remember that this is the second time Brodie has been outed, so to speak. Last week, ABC News in the U.S. also reported that Harper's chief of staff was the leaker. ABC reported that the confirmation came from someone "close to the Prime Minister." Now we're getting a second confirmation, this time from the CTV reporters who received the leak. Brodie apparently was chatting to a clutch of CTV reporters in our federal budget lockup last week, they passed the news to their Washington counterparts, and thus, Obama's troubles began.

And so, if Harper is looking to "get to the bottom" of this international incident, he need only look at the next office over.

A couple of things that shouldn't get lost in today's firestorm:

1. Brodie apparently also told CTV that Hillary Clinton offered similar reassurances to Canada - that all this talk of NAFTA was just campaign rhetoric. So why did CTV only pursue the Obama angle? And interestingly, CTV had not a word to say about this developing story on its news last night - at least the one I viewed at 10 p.m.

2. Clinton's officials are confirming that this incident helped seal Obama's poor results in the Ohio primaries. That's serious too. Obama will remember Canada, and not in a nice way.

3. In ordinary times, heads should roll in Ottawa for how this government has responded to this incident and the whole controversy over whether a $1-million life-insurance policy was offered to the late MP, Chuck Cadman. The statements in the Commons and from the PMO to reporters, to be diplomatic, have hovered at the fringes of out-and-out untruths. I didn't write that last sentence lightly. These are tense and ugly affairs and many of us will be writing about them in the days to come.