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Lieberal response to tsunami a disgrace
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/nati...nami041229.html
Canada to send advance team to see if DART needed
Last Updated Wed, 29 Dec 2004 16:18:40 EST
OTTAWA - Ottawa will send an advance unit to southern Asia to determine whether Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team should be deployed to help out with relief efforts in the aftermath of Sunday's deadly tsunami, some reports say.
Defence Minister Bill Graham is also expected to announce that Canada is sending more planeloads of relief supplies.
It's still not yet clear if the military's DART contingent will necessarily follow.
The federal government has faced questions as to why Canada has not yet sent out its 200-member rapid response unit, which can operate a mobile command centre, a medical facility, and water purification equipment capable of producing 100,000 litres of clean drinking water.
Officials have said DART is not a "short-term response mechanism" and usually isn't deployed within the first 72 hours of a crisis.
But they did not rule out sending the team.
Earlier this week, Graham said none of the local governments involved had requested the unit, and that Canadian officials had been advised that sending DART was not necessary at this time.
We don't need a bunch of bureaucrats to know that DART is needed!!!!!
Armed Forces disaster team grounded by paperwork
Military expert 'appalled' by slow Canadian response
Chris Wattie
National Post
December 28, 2004
Canada's military disaster response team must wait for an official request from the Department of Foreign Affairs before it can be sent to help victims of a tsunami in Southeast Asia.
While other nations had teams already in the air yesterday to help with the aftermath of the deadly tidal wave, defence spokesmen said the Canadian Forces' Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) will not be going anywhere without the proper paperwork.
"A formal request would have to be made by the Department of Foreign Affairs to the Department of National Defence," John Morris, a spokesman for the Defence Department, said yesterday.
"To date, we have not received a formal request for our assets at this time."
Bill Graham, the Defence Minister, said the military teams will remain on standby for now, awaiting a formal request from one or more of the governments in the region hit by the tsunami.
Foreign Affairs would then pass the request along to the Forces, he said. "The DART team obviously is a potential tool," Mr. Graham told a news conference
"It's a wonderful tool, but it's for specific purposes, and we haven't seen where that's necessary at this particular point."
However Dr. David Bercuson, director of the University of Calgary's Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, strongly disagrees.
"It's exactly what [the Forces team is] designed for, and what it was actually used for up until the late 1990s," he said. "It's appalling that they haven't been offered already."
"What do we have a DART team for, if not for things like this?"
The Israeli Defence Forces yesterday dispatched a medical relief team to Sri Lanka and Thailand.
The Israeli military has also offered help to India, including a military search-and-rescue team and consignments of food and medicines.
The United States military also activated its military disaster-assistance teams yesterday, including units based in the Philippines, and Australia began loading emergency supplies on board two Royal Australian Air Force cargo planes.
"It's the sort of thing that makes me ashamed to be Canadian," Dr. Bercuson said. "It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that they have a disaster of major proportions over on the other side of the world and aid is flowing in from everywhere ... and where are we?"
The team, a group of up to 200 soldiers, medics and military engineers designed to fly to disaster zones around the world, was last dispatched to a Turkish earthquake site in 1999.
The Martin government was widely criticized this year for not sending the team to the Caribbean after a hurricane struck Jamaica and Haiti. Pierre Pettigrew, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, cited the cost as one reason for the decision not to send the team to help Haiti.
Dr. Bercuson said the government instead may be trying to avoid a potentially embarrassing problem with the military's ageing CC-130 Hercules transport planes. They are nearly 40 years old and more than half of the air force's fleet of 32 aircraft are under repair at any given time, according to internal defence documents.
"It would be a tremendous embarrassment if the DART team took off in its Hercules aircraft and had to turn back," Dr. Bercuson said.
It takes 26 separate Hercules flights to move the full team to a disaster area, and Dr. Bercuson said it is likely the team will be at its base in Kingston for at least the next few days.
"If they do go it will be an absolute triumph over adversity by the members of our military."
Re: Lieberal response to tsunami a disgrace
another oversimplification...you're right, clearly we should just send the team over without any analysis or putting any thought whatsoever into co-operating with other nations to BEST deliver the relief that is required there 
Canada has already committed $4 million (if I remember right from a press conference?) to the relief effort...it's not like the gov't is doing NOTHING. I suspect that there's an "advance unit" for a reason?
| quote: |
| Originally posted by ShadoWolf ... Earlier this week, Graham said none of the local governments involved had requested the unit, and that Canadian officials had been advised that sending DART was not necessary at this time. |
In other news, Paul Martin is planning yet another 10 day trade mission to China. This guy is worse than the governer general!
Re: Re: Lieberal response to tsunami a disgrace
| quote: |
| Originally posted by MarkT another oversimplification...you're right, clearly we should just send the team over without any analysis or putting any thought whatsoever into co-operating with other nations to BEST deliver the relief that is required there Canada has already committed $4 million (if I remember right from a press conference?) to the relief effort...it's not like the gov't is doing NOTHING. I suspect that there's an "advance unit" for a reason? ie. that tells me that the unit was either explicitly offered, or that the gov't there has been made aware of it's availability. great, even I am making assumptions now...how about we leave these decisions to the various gov'ts involved instead of jumping on the Liberals (despite your love of doing so)? |
what is a rocket surgeon?
Re: Re: Re: Lieberal response to tsunami a disgrace
| quote: |
| Originally posted by ShadoWolf DART was created for precisly this sort of scenario. The Lieberals are not supporting that program and have cut back on its mission. The real reason why DART can't go is that we don't have the airplanes to ship them there. Remember how we had to hitch a ride with the Americans to Afghanistan? |
I heard on the news that they want to split DART up into units. But those plans are for the future. If only they get their act together and do that now, the water purification unit which is needed the most could have been deployed.
Re: Re: Lieberal response to tsunami a disgrace
| quote: |
| Originally posted by MarkT ... Canada has already committed $4 million (if I remember right from a press conference?) to the relief effort...it's not like the gov't is doing NOTHING. I suspect that there's an "advance unit" for a reason? ... |
Re: Re: Re: Lieberal response to tsunami a disgrace
| quote: |
| Originally posted by MarkT oops...+36 million this week...40 million committed. Those bad bad Liberals! |
Re: Re: Re: Lieberal response to tsunami a disgrace
| quote: |
| Originally posted by MarkT oops...+36 million this week...40 million committed. Those bad bad Liberals! |
with less than one third of canadas population, 90 million CAD 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Lieberal response to tsunami a disgrace
| quote: |
| Originally posted by St_Andrew sweden is better tho with less than one third of canadas population, 90 million CAD |
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Lieberal response to tsunami a disgrace
| quote: |
| Originally posted by ShadoWolf and 2,000 Swedes dead http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/as...fic/4136181.stm |
Re: Re: Re: Re: Lieberal response to tsunami a disgrace
| quote: |
| Originally posted by MarkT then isn't your real problem with our aging planes and helicopters and not with bureaucrats determining if/when DART is needed? |
I think if they send out military over there they will have to send more rescue crews to help them evacuate after their sea kings crash.
Ottawa cozies up to Tamil militants
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv.../BNStory/Front/
Sri Lanka says Ottawa cozies up to militants
By COLIN FREEZE
From Friday's Globe and Mail
UPDATED AT 12:49 AM EST Friday, Jan 14, 2005
Colombo � A high-ranking Sri Lankan official warned yesterday that Ottawa has grown too cozy with supporters of Tamil militants and could cause �discontentment and disgruntlement� as Canada tries to get help to people in the northern part of the island country.
Immigration Minister Judy Sgro has said that Canadian visa officers could be sent to Tamil areas to find disaster victims with close relatives who want to immigrate to Canada if those people have difficulty getting to Colombo to file their applications.
But W.H. Wiswa Warnapala, the deputy foreign minister of Sri Lanka's Sinhalese-dominated parliament, said that would irritate his government, which waged a bloody, 20-year civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam until a ceasefire two years ago.
�Certainly, that will be interpreted as a special attempt to get to Tamil areas,� Mr. Warnapala said. �It could be controversial, in my view. It would lead to criticism, discontentment and disgruntlement by the Sinhalese majority.�
A spokeswoman for Ms. Sgro said last night that no one was being given special treatment and the suggestion that visa officers could travel north is just an attempt to ensure that everyone is processed fairly.
�Our goal is to give fair and equal service to all the individuals that we are trying to get in contact with and, for those who cannot get into our office, we will take whatever steps need to be [taken] provided there is no risk to our visa officers,� Sherri High said.
The government's aim, Ms. High said, is to ensure that the Sri Lankans who qualify to be expedited through Canada's immigration system are reunited with their families.
But Mr. Warnapala suggested that Tamils have already disproportionately taken �full advantage� of Canada's immigration system.
Protocol demands that he bite his tongue when Prime Minister Paul Martin visits Sri Lanka next week, he said. But, if asked, he will express his government's point of view that Tamils have been extended special preference because of �pressure groups associated with the LTTE operating in Canada, particularly in Toronto and Scarborough.�
The Sri Lankan government discourages foreign officials from going to Tamil-controlled areas, fearing it will lend legitimacy to Tamil claims for independence. Mr. Martin has said he will not travel to northern Sri Lanka, although he will meet Tamil representatives during his trip.
The Sri Lanka Daily News said that Mr. Martin's decision not to visit the north has �taught another lesson in international diplomacy to the LTTE.�
Mr. Warnapala said he is �very pleased� that Mr. Martin is coming, but that it is a good thing he is not going to the north.
Militant expatriate Tamils are aggressively lobbying Canadian officials, he said, and Ottawa should be careful not to interlope into divisive political issues at a delicate time.
Jim Karygiannis, a Liberal MP from Scarborough, is in the northern part of Sri Lanka on a self-directed mission to ensure that aid is being distributed there.
While not taking anyone to task in particular, Mr. Warnapala said it would be wrong for outsiders to become embroiled in the internal politics of his country. The two have made attempts to put aside their differences during the tsunami crisis.
�We don't want people to interfere and upset the balance we have created in the last 13 days. We don't want anybody to make political capital out of that,� he said.
Most of Canada's 200,000-plus Tamil population fled the war between the Sinhalese-dominated government forces and the LTTE. While the gunfire has stopped, deeply ingrained hostilities between the two sides remain and a public-relations battle has intensified since the giant waves wiped out much of the country's coastal areas two weeks ago.
Despite the overtures of co-operation, a battle has emerged over whether international aid funnelled through the Colombo is getting to Tamils in the north and east areas that bore the heaviest losses.
Groups in those regions insist that Colombo wants to wipe Tamils out, not help them; the government calls those accusations LTTE propaganda. Mr. Karygiannis said he has seen aid getting through.
�On the ground, what I've seen is the aid is coming,� Mr. Karygiannis said in a telephone interview yesterday, adding that, although he paid for the trip, he will discuss his findings with Mr. Martin. The Canadian High Commission in Colombo referred calls on the immigration issue to Citizenship and Immigration spokesman Enrico del Castello. He echoed Ms. High's assertions that visa officers �will not be sent to any area of Sri Lanka where there are serious concerns about their safety.�
But the ranks of Canadian visa officers in the country are being bolstered to deal with an anticipated surge in applications. One officer has flown in from New Delhi and two more have been sent from Beijing to help the four visa officers who work out of Colombo.
So far, the demand resulting from the tsunamis has not been huge, Mr. de Castello said. �Since the crisis, we have issued 42 visas.�
And, in the end, officers may not be needed to make a trip north. Mr. Karygiannis said that from what he's seeing, northern Tamils are �more than willing� to go to Colombo to have their immigration applications processed. He added that he was hurt by comments from Liberal MP David Kilgour that his visit was adding fuel to the fire of Sri Lankan politics.
With a report from Gloria Galloway
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNe...?hub=TopStories
DART arrives in aid-saturated Ampara
CTV.ca News Staff
Updated: Mon. Jan. 10 2005 11:28 PM ET
Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team has arrived at the old sugar factory outside Ampara that will serve as its main base.
But they are deploying in an area that appears to have generous supplies of food, clean water and medical care, said CTV's Lisa LaFlamme on Monday.
Dr. Robert Greaves and his wife Rhonda, a nurse, have been in the area for 13 days.
"Rebuilding is the issue," Robert told CTV News. "We brought with us $600 worth of fresh-water pumps and another $200 to $300 worth of tablets to make water and I'm taking every single one of them back."
Rhonda said instead of healing the sick, they were rediagnosing the already ailing.
"They would have medical notebooks with all of their medical history," she said. "It was all washed to sea, all written down."
LaFlamme said if the immediate needs are met, DART is prepared to alter its mission.
"We can assist with pumping out wells, chlorinating them and letting the water table fill them back up," said Maj. Steve Hewitt of the DART team.
Heavy equipment to assist in that type of work is scheduled to arrive later this week.
LaFlamme said the areas of greatest need are those rendered inaccessible by the tsunamis and are only accessible by helicopter.
They need overland access restored, she said.
Warm welcome
The Canadian Press reported that the Canadian convoy took 18 hours to get to Ampara. It started at 5 a.m. local time.
Along the way, it had to deal with two flats and two accidents -- and a delay caused by keys locked inside one truck.
Because of poor navigation, they gave residents of Godakawela a chance to shout "Hello Canada!" twice.
All along the journey, locals smiled, honked, gave a thumbs-up or saluted as Canadians passed by.
One such greeter quietly confided he had lost 150 relatives and friends -- residents of a fishing village that was entirely destroyed by the Dec. 26 tsunamis.
At least 30,000 people died in Sri Lanka, with total casualties totalling more than 150,000.
As they travelled, Canadian troops snapped pictures of monkeys swinging from vines, tea plantations, rice paddies -- and kept a close eye on�a huge lizard sunning itself beside the road.
What the above two articles show is that the Lieberal response wasn't about saving lives, it was about buying (Tamil) votes in the GTA.
Hardly any Indonesians live in Canada, so we barely sent any aid there, even though that was the hardest hit country.
Not enough potential Lieberal voters from that community.
This country is truely a bad joke. 
Turns out I was right after all.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/.../pf-931801.html
Tamils Tigers won't be added to terror list
By JIM BROWN
OTTAWA (CP) - Canada condemns terrorist activity by the Tamil Tigers, including suspected recruitment of child soldiers, but the Liberal government still isn't ready to outlaw the organization, says Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew.
Moving now to put the Tigers on Ottawa's proscribed list of terrorist organizations could disrupt delicate efforts to negotiate peace in Sri Lanka, Pettigrew said Tuesday.
He was queried at a Commons committee, in light of reports by New York-based Human Rights Watch and by UNICEF that the Tigers have been recruiting children orphaned by the Asian tsunami.
Tamil nationalists say they are offering charity, not forcing the children to join their struggle against the Sinhalese majority in Sri Lanka.
Pettigrew said Ottawa takes the reports of forced recruitment seriously and "we absolutely condemn the abduction of children and believe that it is fundamentally wrong."
But he added that several countries including the United States and Norway - the latter deeply involved in mediation efforts in Sri Lanka - have asked Ottawa not to aggravate the situation by moving against the Tigers in Canada.
"We believe it is better to try to work and engage them in a very fragile ceasefire, to strengthen it and maintain it," he said.
"We honestly believe at this time that it would not be useful to list the Tamil Tigers (as a terrorist organization)."
The Liberal government has barred the group - officially known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam or LTTE - from fundraising in Canada.
But it has not taken the additional step of outlawing simple membership in the organization - a move long sought by Conservatives, including foreign affairs critic Stockwell Day.
Day renewed his demand Tuesday, insisting the best way to combat terrorism is "to stand up to it and not be seen as appeasing or accommodating it."
He raised the issue after Pettigrew's cabinet colleague, Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan, indicated Monday that the Foreign Affairs Department had been lobbying her against an outright ban on the Tigers.
McLellan made the comments at a Senate committee as she defended federal anti-terrorism legislation passed after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks by Islamic extremists in New York and Washington.
The law allows police to make preventive arrests, hold people without charge for up to 72 hours and compel them to testify before a judge about suspected terrorist activity.
Most of the extraordinary powers have never been used, and only one person is known to have been charged under the legislation.
But McLellan said it remains a necessary part of anti-terrorist policy.
Concern about LTTE operations in Canada arose long before the 9-11 attacks heightened awareness of terrorist threats.
Prime Minister Paul Martin walked a fine line on a recent visit to Sri Lanka, where he inspected tsunami relief efforts and met with Tamil nationalist politicians.
Like Pettigrew he condemned terrorist acts but rejected calls for more stringent domestic action against the Tamil Tigers, saying Canada has been asked not to aggravate an already delicate situation.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by ShadoWolf What the above two articles show is that the Lieberal response wasn't about saving lives, it was about buying (Tamil) votes in the GTA. Hardly any Indonesians live in Canada, so we barely sent any aid there, even though that was the hardest hit country. Not enough potential Lieberal voters from that community. This country is truely a bad joke. |
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/cover042005.htm
Scandal looming in promised $425 million for Sir Lanka tsunami victims that never arrived?
by Judi McLeod, Editor,
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Even as the association of Canadian Maurice Strong with "Koreagate Man" Tungsun Park was coming under world limelight, Sri Lankans were starting to demand answers about where the $425 million promised by Canada to tsunami victims is.
Four months after the tsunami hit, Sri Lankans still don�t have their money. Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin rushed to the scene for a weeklong photo op. Generous Canadians donated record amounts of money on line.
The Canadian government promised to match dollar for dollar, donations from the public.
But the promised mega millions never arrived.
According to veteran newsman Garth Pritchard, in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of last December�s tsunami, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is allegedly holding the $425-million.
Kofi Annan�s special envoy to Korea Maurice Strong, also a senior advisor to Prime Minister Paul Martin, was the founding president of CIDA.
"Through his creation and direction of CIDA, Strong controlled the implementation of aid programs on the ground--including who was hired to do the work, and through the newly-created IDRC (International Development Research Center), Strong controlled the issuance of tax deductible certificates and the distribution of both private foundation money as well as government money." (Henry Lamb, Maurice Strong, The new guy in your life, 1997).
"The IDRC was a quasi-government agency that had unique authority to receive charitable donations and issue tax deductible certificate--and give money directly to individual governments and private organizations. Strong became its head in 1970."
There�s yet another link to Maurice Strong during his prot�g� Paul Martin�s tsunami photo op Sri Lankan tour.
"It was as bald as a message on the world�s biggest billboard---Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin swigging from a bottle of purified water in Kalumai, Sri Lanka," wrote Canada Free Press in January, 2005. "The photo of a lifetime, eclipsed by free advertising for ZENON Environmental Inc."
Martin�s mentor Strong has been a director on the ZENON board of directors since October, 2003.
Strong is on the public record for predicting that water will have to be rationed by armed guards as soon as 2031.
Strong, the chief architect of the Kyoto Protocol claimed that he did not know that one of the world�s largest aquifers was sitting under the 100,000 acre Baca Ranch that he and his wife once owned. Strong made a 1978 acquisition of the Colorado Land & Cattle Company, which owned 200,000 acres if San Luis Valley in Colorado from Saudi arms dealer, Adnan Khashoggi.
Worthy noting that the same sources voicing alarm about the imminent scarcity of H2O happen to be the same ones who own it, or at least are in a position to control it?
Editor's Note:
Still to come: Garth Pritchard's explosive account of Prime Minister Paul Martin's photo-op in tsunami-ravaged Sri Lanka.
interesting... and yet the liberals accuse the conservaitves of using immigrants to get votes. Suuuuuuuure
Lets dump these bozos
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