Blame Foreign Affairs

There's something about Mexico and Canadians visiting there as happy tourists. Fate must somehow be ambivalent about their commingling. An over-representation - at least it must seem so to the victims and their families - of mishaps occurring to Canadian visitors to Mexico has surfaced in the last year or so.

That's a sad and sorry thing for Canadians eager to take their leisure in the sun-soaked atmosphere of the southern third representing the tip of North America, and it's a sad and sorry thing for a poor country highly dependent on tourism. But Mexico is wracked with violence. Every country has its demographic of underprivileged, but Mexico has more than its share.

It has, too, more than its share of crime and degraded living conditions, and a policing and justice system that does not appear capable of coping with the enormous challenges confronted on an everyday basis. Drugs, smuggling, corruption, the proliferation of arms and poverty represent a deadly mixture for any society, and Mexico's is becoming increasingly dysfunctional.

News keeps coming out of that country of the miseries associated with the drug cartels virtually commandeering law and security in certain of its provinces, transforming an idyllic landscape into a vast slaughterhouse as the deadly drug trade and the challenges of competing drug lords meet head on.

And Canadians, who love to venture to the country for their 'dream vacations' sometimes meet violence and even death where they expect to be greeted with a fulfillment of their dreams.

In the latest carnage which has not quite been satisfactorily explicated, five Canadians and two Mexicans died in what is purported to have been a methane gas build-up at the Grand Riviera Princess Hotel at the resort of Playa del Carmen. One might assume that Canadians would be aware of the inordinately large numbers of fellow Canadians who have met with foul play in Mexico, and they might think twice about travelling there.

After all, the prevalence of crime and violence is not the only caution; in countries not equipped with the same standards of safety for building in areas said to be swamp lands where gas build-ups in mangrove swamps can occur, or where propane gas is used extensively for energy needs which can potentially result in explosions, due caution is required.

On the other hand, the facade of safety and the impressive luxury present at resorts far from the poverty of Mexican cities, seems reassuring. And the wide swaths of sandy beaches, the exotic flora and fauna, the gentle breezes and sun-filled days and warm, dreamy nights in a romantic atmosphere does relax one's cautionary observation.

Having said which, people exercise their right of free choice to make arrangements with loved ones to travel to the country in the full knowledge that there may be a certain element of danger. Downplaying the potential for danger to achieve the allure of experiencing the promise of sun, sand and play.

In this instance, a young boy was killed along with his father, a newly-married man, a middle-aged woman and another mature man - and many other Canadians severely injured, in the explosion at the hotel catering to Canadians. And then, predictably, it is the Government of Canada which bears the brunt of disgruntled disaffection when people in duress complain that diplomats have not rushed comfortingly and immediately to their rescue.