According to an official report, 3,197 people were killed for political reasons under Pinochet, including more than 1,000 who were made to disappear. Thousands more were illegally imprisoned, tortured or forced into exile.
Pinochet is currently under indictment in two human rights abuse cases and for tax evasion, and has scores of others criminal suits pending, filed by victims of abuses or their relatives. Until now, the courts have dropped the charges against him citing his poor health.
The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan is acquiring its first piece of Canadian infrastructure - the dominant freight container terminal operation on Canada's Pacific Coast - as part of a US$2.4-billion deal announced Thursday.
The announcement coincided with indications the federal government will smooth the road for pension fund investment in public infrastructure such as highways, transport hubs and utilities.
The Advantage Canada plan outlined by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty on Thursday included a pledge to give maximum impact to government spending through public-private partnerships.
These so-called P3s "will also provide opportunities for Canadian pension funds and other investors to participate in infrastructure projects here in Canada rather than being forced to look abroad, as is often the case now," according to the finance ministry.
Flaherty plans to set up a federal P3 office, and intends to force provinces and municipalities to "consider P3 options" for all large projects that get federal funding.
"It's about time," Michael Nobrega, CEO of the Borealis Infrastructure unit of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, said Friday.
"We hope he follows through. Pension funds are looking to put money out, so until the follow-through occurs it's not real, but's certainly very, very encouraging."
At the Teachers fund, officials are "quite heartened . . . because Canada has not had a lot of infrastructure opportunity," said Deborah Allan, director of communications for the pension plan, which has $96-billion of assets under management.
Teachers announced Thursday it is paying US$2.4 billion to Orient Overseas of Hong Kong for Deltaport at Roberts Bank south of Vancouver and Vanterm in the Burrard Inlet inner harbour - which operate under long-term leases with the federal Vancouver Port Authority - as well as the New York Container Terminal on Staten Island and the Global Terminal and Container Systems complex in Bayonne, N.J.
The Canadian and U.S. port terminals are of roughly equal value, said Jim Leech, who heads the Teachers fund's private capital portfolio.
In the wider Canadian infrastructure world, "the main complaint that pension funds have had is whether or not the levels of government have the political will to have public assets owned by private enterprise," Leech said.
"You've got some people ideologically opposed, believing that all public infrastructure - highways, airports, et cetera - should be owned 100 per cent by the government, and taxes should just go up to fix them," he said.
"We've been sitting on the sidelines, waiting for the debate to be had and somebody to make a decision."
In the meantime, Teachers' foreign infrastructure investments include Scotia Gas Networks in Scotland and England, 10 power plants internationally, and the Northumberland Water Group in the U.K., along with large timber tracts in New Zealand and the United States.
Other Canadian pension funds have also gone abroad. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board last month put $1.05 billion into a consortium bid for British water utility AWG PLC, the CPP's largest infrastructure investment to date.
The volume of pension fund money going into infrastructure is increasing globally, observed Andrew Harrison, a pension specialist at law firm Borden Ladner Gervais.
"The principal reason is that these, by their nature, are long-term assets - and that's the key in a pension fund, where you've got people who are accruing benefits today who won't see their last payment out of the fund for 50 or 60 years," he said.
Infrastructure "also tends to provide some inflation protection, in that the payments off the infrastructure tend to rise over time."
The only potential pitfall he sees is that infrastructure assets "tend to be illiquid; if something does happen it's very hard to unload one of these investments."
Rock Lefebvre, vice-president of research at CGA-Canada, observed that defined-benefit pension funds can't depend on safe fixed-income instruments such as bonds to cover their future liabilities.
"They have to risk, so this is a fairly nice risk for all the parties involved."
Domestic infrastructure would have the extra advantage of eliminating currency risk, but fund managers have been complaining for years that Canada's governments have been slow to allow private money into public projects.
"Governments are starting to realize that they can't fund all the infrastructure investment that has to happen," said Harrison, who heads the government relations committee of the Association of Canadian Pension Management.
"You've got these enormous capital pools in Canada to pay benefits to Canadians. There does seem to be a symmetry to using that money to invest in the infrastructure those same Canadians use."
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Will wonders never cease Blogging Tory Celestial Junk discovers that women's oppression continues in Afghanistan despite Tory propaganda. Where was he when the Afghani MP Malalai Joya' was saying the same thing at the NDP Convention? Like the other pro-war Blogging Tories and Pro War Liberals probably attacking the NDP. Well as they say better late than never.
Activist with Afghani organization for women’s rights RAWA tells Ynet women’s situation in Afghanistan even worse than before American invasion: Rape, kidnapping, murder go unpunished.
“I know what they tell you in the West about the situation here,” Sahar Saab sighs despairingly. Saab, an activist with the women’s movement RAWA which operates almost underground in Afghanistan, adds, “They tell you women’s circumstances have improved greatly, but in reality there is no improvement. In the capital, Kabul, and in a few more cities, women even work in government offices, but their numbers are very few, and many dangers still ambush women in the cities. And in the suburbs? For their own safety, women continue to wear burqas. Almost daily, we hear of kidnappings, rape, murder, suicide and disappearance in areas still ruled by the Taliban or the Northern Alliance, and we know there are many more incidents not reported.”
Government officials who manage the programs in various government departments were told this week that climate-change programs extended by one year in April will not be renewed.
The officials are being asked to compile information as to who would most likely be affected and what their public reaction would be.
The project is being described internally as “government-wide” and The Globe and Mail was able to confirm that at least two departments, Natural Resources Canada and Agriculture Canada, were submitting reports this week.
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Cold weather may affect turnout
A political science professor said Saturday's forecast of temperatures no higher than -20 C could hurt turnout at the polling stations.
Roger Epp of the University of Alberta said thousands of Progressive Conservative memberships have been sold to the province's rural residents, but frigid temperatures could make getting those voters to the polls a challenge.
