Editor: In July 2009, you can buy an 11-year-old slave for the price of grooming your doggy for the summer. Hop on a plane to Port-au- Prince, Haiti and in 10 hours or so, you can be the bashful owner of another human being,

Please don’t rush your purchase. Why deprive yourself of the best when you have 300,000 children in Haiti alone to choose from? Do some homework first. At the very least, Google “How to Buy a Child in 10 hours.” You might also want to pick up a stiff cowhide whip, a rigoise which is widely available there, in case your slave is not fully compliant.

What kind of a place is Haiti? What kind of people live there, who do this or allow it to happen? They are poor people, extremely poor. What kind of people live outside of Haiti who allow this to happen? People like you and me, heads down, engrossed in important stuff, not so poor. I know, I’ve had decades of experience in my own little world.

Why are they poor? Why can’t they be like us? Maybe despite the whips and all, they just don’t have the discipline we had to pull ourselves up by the jockstraps and get ahead.

Well it’s their country, they messed it up. Democracy, that’s the answer. The sooner they learn that and throw out those tyrants, the sooner they can enjoy the fruits of democracy and civilization like we do.

What, they didn’t mess up all by themselves? They had a little help? Well yes, the Americans flooded Haiti with cheap subsidized rice, so Haitian farmers were driven out of business, adding to the poverty problem and the child slavery.

Oh those Americans, they’re bad. What? We had shares in that rice trading business? Well maybe, but I’m not really sure. I don’t quite know the minutiae of my investments. You got me there. Besides I mainly have my pension to look forward to when I retire. That’s my biggest investment which will support me in the future.

Oh, your pension. Didn’t you know that your bigwig pension managers invested in a certain oil company which helps prop up the brutal dictators in Burma. These business partners gave us the Karen refugees, slaughtered the monks not long ago and locked up Aung San Suu Kyi much of the past 19 years, just to be on the safe side.

Your pension has no funds in that oil company, it’s with PetroChina? Oh, so you know President Omar el-Bashir and the Khartoum regime who gave us Darfur and the Sudanese refugees.

What? Can you call 911 right away or should you use the other number for the community police to pick you up? Well you needn’t pack your pyjamas just yet.

Why don’t you come hear what Peter Chapman of SHARE has to say? He’s talking about ethical investing at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 13 at St Joseph’s Parish Hall, 20676 Fraser Hwy.

If you learn you have business alliances that aren’t proper, you can be picked up in the paddy wagon there and then with other offenders. It’s so much better for the environment when we car pool so to speak.

Yeah, Mr Chapman will touch on green companies. That’s a comfort, isn’t it?

Brendan Martin,

Langley