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Canada rescuing Canadians from Lebanon and all they get are complaints (pg. 8)
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| adi26 |
| ooo...btw gr8 thread lisa :) |
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| *~LiSa-LoO~* |
| quote: | Originally posted by Skipper
Hurricane warnings go out days in advance so people can take cover or evacuate. the situation in Lebanon is not nearly so simple.
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I was in Florida two summer's ago and was told the day before the hurricane hit that there was a hurricane coming. I did not have fair warning...and there were tons of people trying to get out from where I was.
I believe the situations are in fact comparable b/c like I said, it's not about the reason why ppl are in danger, it's the fact that they are in danger period. Not to mention, we cannot predict what mother earth will do...a bad storm or tsunami even could hit with no warning at all.
| quote: | Originally posted by Skipper
I did read in the globe last Saturday that a woman who was on Harper's 11 hr flight back asked him for 5 minutes of his time to chat about the process of evacuees in Lebanon and the administrative difficulties she had with the Canadian Embassy, and he said, "Send me an email." ELEVEN HOURS ON A PLANE AND YOU WONT TAKE 5 MINUTES TO ADDRESS THIS WOMAN'S CONCERNS. He might as well have said "Didn't you know this entire trip was just for positive media attention?" |
This however...Harper should be ashamed of himself. |
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| malek |
after reading this thread, you guys are much bigger whiners than the ones being bombarded.
you guys need to get your facts straight, from the thousands who landed in Montréal in the past few days, very few (less than 10%) were living in Lebanon. The vast majority were Canadians vacationning abroad and caught in the crossfire.
Is it too much for them to ask for water and food on a trip that takes from what i heard 14 hours in the mediteranean sea in the middle of the summer? Considering these same people were waiting for hours and days to get aboard that said ship, I don't think its too much of a demand.
Can't one of the richest and humane country on earth afford some water bottles and cookies? Considering they would have been bought in Cyprus, cost wouldn't be an issue there.
The saddest from you guys remarks is that you consider that the Canadian people are being robbed millions because of the cost of transport. These people, paid their round trip plane ticket, they too got robbed when their flights were cancelled becaue of an act of war. Doesn't the Canadian govt help Canadians when disasters strike, be it floods, forest fires, etc? Let alone the millions Canada spends on foreign aid, should we tell those starving kids in Africa that they shouldn't be there in the first place? :rolleyes: |
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| *~LiSa-LoO~* |
| quote: | Originally posted by malek
Is it too much for them to ask for water and food on a trip that takes from what i heard 14 hours in the mediteranean sea in the middle of the summer? Considering these same people were waiting for hours and days to get aboard that said ship, I don't think its too much of a demand.
Can't one of the richest and humane country on earth afford some water bottles and cookies? Considering they would have been bought in Cyprus, cost wouldn't be an issue there.
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Asking for a bit of food and water, a place to stay or whatever...Canada is not obligated to give them such...but yes I believe that it's the right thing to do and to help our people.
I know that not everyone trapped in Lebanon shares the same opinion as these people who got their letters printed...but demanding a luxury cruise ship come in and save him is a bit ridiculus. Ya, they lose some money on their air fare, but that's what travel insurance is for.
| quote: | Originally posted by malek
The saddest from you guys remarks is that you consider that the Canadian people are being robbed millions because of the cost of transport. These people, paid their round trip plane ticket, they too got robbed when their flights were cancelled becaue of an act of war. |
A bit of a different story, but my friend just got back from Spain and he was planning on travelling all over and one of his flights got moved, and thus messed up all his other flight reservations. He ended up just coming home and having to pay for the flights he never took b/c it would have cost him even MORE money just to get things straightened out. That's an example of having to pay for a flight he never took. |
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| Vivid Boy |
no u what that! HARPER DESERVES TO BE IN SHOT AND KILLED!
our whole lives we have had a neutral stand point with the whole middle east. NOW all of a in sudden this ass clown comes into in power and we're pro Israeli?!?!? could harper have his tongue any farther up George W. Bush's ass?! he deserves to be shot hung up on display and pissed on to teach new governments coming into power that we will not be ed with! |
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| adi26 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Vivid Boy
he deserves to be shot hung up on display and pissed on to teach new governments coming into power that we will not be ed with! |
Yea.....V for Vendetta, make the government scared of people eh... |
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| malek |
| quote: | Originally posted by *~LiSa-LoO~*
Asking for a bit of food and water, a place to stay or whatever...Canada is not obligated to give them such...but yes I believe that it's the right thing to do and to help our people.
I know that not everyone trapped in Lebanon shares the same opinion as these people who got their letters printed...but demanding a luxury cruise ship come in and save him is a bit ridiculus. Ya, they lose some money on their air fare, but that's what travel insurance is for.
A bit of a different story, but my friend just got back from Spain and he was planning on travelling all over and one of his flights got moved, and thus messed up all his other flight reservations. He ended up just coming home and having to pay for the flights he never took b/c it would have cost him even MORE money just to get things straightened out. That's an example of having to pay for a flight he never took. |
lisa where are you getting your propaganda from ?? national post and globe and mail?? what the hell are you talking about? luxury cruises? You just sound like a spoiled girl who has no clue whatsever.
And on a side note, I am sure people wouldn't mind paying their tickets back if there was actually still an airport left in Lebanon... please don't talk out of your ass.:rolleyes: |
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| *~LiSa-LoO~* |
| quote: | Originally posted by malek
lisa where are you getting your propaganda from ?? national post and globe and mail?? what the hell are you talking about? luxury cruises? You just sound like a spoiled girl who has no clue whatsever.
And on a side note, I am sure people wouldn't mind paying their tickets back if there was actually still an airport left in Lebanon... please don't talk out of your ass.:rolleyes: |
Actually I'm not getting my information from the National Post and Globe and Mail...I'm getting it from a local newspaper in Cambridge. If I could get the article and QUOTE what the guy said exactly than I would, but I no longer have access to it! FYI, I don't live in Toronto and don't read their newspapers. And no I'm not a spoiled girl who has no clue, what the hell makes you think that? I said I WOULDN'T be asking for luxury cruises...I would get in a ing canoe if I could. Don't ing call me spoiled when you don't know me AT ALL.
And on a side note...if you think people wouldn't mind paying their tickets back...since there is no airport in Lebanon anymore...why don't they use the money for their tickets to HELP the poor Lebanese children that they're complaining should be helped by the Canadian gov't.
I'm not the one talking out of my ass. |
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| Halycon |
| maybe to recoup the expensnse of evacuating these ppl, a class asction lawsuit should be launched agained the Israeli and Lebanese gov't |
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| malek |
| quote: | Originally posted by *~LiSa-LoO~*
Actually I'm not getting my information from the National Post and Globe and Mail...I'm getting it from a local newspaper in Cambridge. If I could get the article and QUOTE what the guy said exactly than I would, but I no longer have access to it! FYI, I don't live in Toronto and don't read their newspapers. And no I'm not a spoiled girl who has no clue, what the hell makes you think that? I said I WOULDN'T be asking for luxury cruises...I would get in a ing canoe if I could. Don't ing call me spoiled when you don't know me AT ALL.
And on a side note...if you think people wouldn't mind paying their tickets back...since there is no airport in Lebanon anymore...why don't they use the money for their tickets to HELP the poor Lebanese children that they're complaining should be helped by the Canadian gov't.
I'm not the one talking out of my ass. |
are you dense? these people already paid their tickets ROUND TRIP, They were vacationning in Lebanon and were expected to come back to their jobs/families/etc.
Those who were rich enough or who were lucky enough got money sent from abroad, thousands already fled by their own means because they could not risk their lives waiting after our valiant govt, the others are stuck. And more cannot even flee because they are caught in southern lebanon.
If you had kids and were on that boat with no water and food under the sun, i am sure that you would be grateful, trying to explain to your crying kids that they shouldn't complain because they're safe on the boat. How about the elders and those who are ill? They're not allowed to complain? They should shut it and move along like a herd?
And I had no idea Cambridge (never heard of it btw) had a newspaper, let alone being big enough to send reporters to Lebanon and/or those ships and interview those who complained, you can't be serious right? Their news must be syndicated from bigger newspaper and news agencies feeding you little-towners-empty-headed people with valid and accurate information! Did they also interview the thousands that were grateful to the Canadian govt and made it back safely? Or are they just paying attention to those who were the loudest?
And how do you know that the Lebanese over here aren't sending money to their relatives back home to help them? Do you have Lebanese people around you that decided that this war does not concern them?
You seem so well informed, shame on you. |
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| malek |
| quote: | Originally posted by *~LiSa-LoO~*
...don't complain about it! |
ever heard of this?
don't expect people to behave differently when level 1 and 2 aren't fullfilled.
people will complain no matter what.
Your belly comes first. |
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| Allegory |
Here are some sources to illustrate that the majority of Lebanese Canadians are in fact residing in Canada and went to visit for the summer.
Source: Globe and Mail
Thousands won't join Lebanon exodus
Most Canadians in country choose to stay in war zone as evacuation winds down
GLORIA GALLOWAY
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
OTTAWA — Fewer than one quarter of the Canadians registered with their embassy in Lebanon have taken up the government's offer to get them out of the war-torn country, as officials say dwindling numbers mean the evacuation is winding down.
By late yesterday afternoon, after five days of exodus, slightly more than 7,900 people had boarded ships chartered by Canada to take them to safety. Only 2,800 of that number had actually reached Canadian soil, leaving thousands of evacuees in transit on ships headed for Turkey or Cyprus, on the ground there, or on airplanes headed to Canada.
There are more than 38,000 people registered with the Canadian embassy in Beirut. While Foreign Affairs representatives refused to say publicly how many of that total they believe to be tourists and how many have settled permanently in Lebanon, one official estimated yesterday that the temporary visitors account for about 20 per cent of the total.
That number roughly corresponds with the number that have fled so far, which suggests that many of those who live in Lebanon have decided to tough it out.
There are an estimated 1,000 Canadians still trapped in the dangerous southern part of the country, where a ship is due to arrive tomorrow to remove some of them from the port of Tyre -- though Foreign Affairs officials said yesterday that there was no way to guarantee safe passage from the border villages.
Israel's aerial bombardments diminished as the ground battle intensified in Hezbollah's southern strongholds, where soldiers fought pitched battles with dug-in militants.
Hezbollah rockets were still falling on Israel yesterday, but Israeli bombing of Beirut fell silent as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited the Lebanese capital seeking a diplomatic solution before moving on to Israel.
Canadian soldiers made a perilous journey into Hezbollah territory yesterday to whisk stranded Canadians from the most violent city in the fight in southern Lebanon.
A dozen civilians were outnumbered by about 15 Canadian military personnel, including several in plain clothes, as they rushed onto a ship in Tyre, a southern Lebanon port reduced to ruin by constant Israeli bombardment.
But it was clear that the number of Canadians desperate to escape through Beirut was dwindling. Fewer than 1,200 people boarded Canadian ships leaving Lebanon yesterday, down substantially from the 2,415 who left Sunday.
"We are putting out a call to all remaining Canadians who wish to leave," one senior government official told a briefing yesterday. They should "report to Beirut or Tyre so they can be put on boats." Those leaving through Beirut were asked to arrive by 9 a.m. today.
In the first chaotic days of the evacuation, the Canadians eager to escape the bombing had been told to wait until they were contacted before arriving at the port.
There will be no more direct communication between the embassy and those who indicate a desire to leave, said the official, adding that members of the Foreign Affairs staff have spent much time trying to reach people, only to find that they have already left the country.
Jean Ghosn, a baker, has four children, two elderly parents and a Canadian passport. He would like to go to Canada, but he can't imagine how he will house and feed his clan with no savings and no job prospects. His brother, Ziad Ghosn, also a Canadian, is worried about his wife, who is four months pregnant with twins. He will go back to Canada, he said, just not now.
While the Canadian government is paying the cost of the evacuation, Foreign Affairs officials refused again yesterday to give an estimate of the final bill.
"We're not in a position to say how much this is going to cost because we're not finished the operation yet," he said. "I would be very reluctant to offer a figure that would turn out to be only partially correct."
In most cases where the government is called in to help get Canadians out of dangerous situations abroad, those rescued are expected to pay their own expenses. But Prime Minister Stephen Harper decided last week that taxpayers would pick up the cost of what is acknowledged as the largest evacuation of this sort in Canadian history. One Foreign Affairs official explained that the government does foot the bill in large-scale operations that involve extraordinary circumstances. Besides, he said, logistically it would be difficult to collect the fees charged.
The government officials refused to estimate yesterday exactly how many more Canadians would want to leave the country. But, despite their call for the remaining evacuees to report to the boats today or tomorrow, they insisted they will continue to help Canadians evacuate in the days and weeks ahead.
Of the nearly 8,000 who have departed on Canadian-chartered ships, all but 15 to 20 per cent held Canadian citizenship. The rest were permanent residents of Canada and people of other nationalities -- Brazilian, Ukrainian, Australian and American -- who sought Canada's assistance.
Back in Canada, a debate about how much Canada owes to evacuees who have made permanent lives in other countries continued.
Conservative MP Garth Turner said last week that he believed people travelling to Lebanon as tourists should get precedence on the boats over Canadians who now live in that country. He also questioned whether the government was responsible for the costs of evacuating the people who no longer make their homes in Canada.
Those comments have prompted hundreds of calls and e-mails to his office. "I would say we are probably nine out of 10 supportive if not more," he said yesterday.
With a report from Canadian Press
Source: The Toronto Star
Canadian relief effort picks up pace
Complaints about rescue dwindling
Many evacuees express relief, gratitude
Jul. 24, 2006. 01:00 AM
OAKLAND ROSS
STAFF REPORTER
LARNACA, Cyprus—She is a young mother with a baby in a stroller, she's just been through one hell of a day, and her nerves are clearly on edge.
It is midnight in Cyprus, and she has just arrived here after sailing for 11 hours aboard a Canadian-chartered cruise ship — the Princesa Marissa — that has borne her and roughly 1,200 other evacuees on a passage to safety after the fire and rubble of Lebanon.
You would think the woman — who does not give her name — might be relieved at her deliverance, maybe even grateful. Instead, as she pushes her child through the steamy darkness along the wharf at Larnaca, she seems downright peeved.
"It is just not good enough," she grouches, before launching into a tirade against the inadequacies of the Canadian relief effort, an operation aimed at rescuing as many of this country's nationals in Lebanon as want to be saved, out of the approximately 50,000 who are in the embattled land.
When pressed, however, she can identify just one specific inconvenience that she has endured — a broken escalator aboard the Princesa Marissa.
It seems she was obliged to manoeuvre her child and stroller down the non-functioning device by herself, and no one offered to help.
"We deserve better," she rails.
This proves to be too much for many of the other refugees crowded around her, all waiting in the night-time heat to clear local immigration formalities before continuing their long journey to Canada.
A man in a red polo shirt sternly chastises the woman for her ingratitude.
"You cannot blame Canada because of one escalator," he says and then raises his voice, to be certain a newspaper reporter can hear. "We are very proud to be Canadian. We are very grateful for what the Canadian government is doing."
Many other refugees promptly leap in, all warmly expressing their agreement with the man in the red shirt and distancing themselves from the woman with the stroller.
She, however, stands her ground, insisting she has a right to complain if she wishes.
Courteous but heated, the debate continues among the newly arrived refugees as they shuffle toward the customs house at the port of Larnaca, with their suitcases, their knapsacks, their children and their regrets.
But it is clear that the woman with the stroller is in a minority — in fact, a minority of one.
It just goes to show that some things do change. When Canadian refugees first began showing up here in substantial numbers last Thursday, they seemed all but unanimous in their condemnation of the treatment they had received from Canadian officialdom along the way.
Too much waiting. Too little organization. Too little water. Insufficient or inadequate food. Rough waters. Stuffy quarters aboard cramped boats. Too many people throwing up.
If such comments seemed ungracious, considering the evacuees were now safe and sound after having been plucked to security from a deadly war, they were also probably unsurprising.
By the time they reach this Mediterranean island, the Canadian refugees — like those from other countries — are hungry, thirsty, exhausted from lack of sleep, and raw-nerved from a surfeit of stress.
Little wonder that their tempers sometimes snap.
The Canadian relief operation had been slow to get underway, but the mission seems to be operating more smoothly now. Between Saturday and yesterday, roughly 1,750 Canadian refugees reached Cyprus from Lebanon, and by midday yesterday all but 600 of them were on their way back to Canada or had already arrived.
Additional boats were carrying more Canadians to the port of Mersin on the Turkish coast.
Many of the evacuees reaching Cyprus over the weekend seemed at pains to avoid the sort of diatribes unleashed by many who had arrived earlier, perhaps partly because such complaints have played poorly in some quarters in Canada.
They have also raised prickly questions — again, in some quarters — about just who "these people" are.
Don't most of the refugees have dual Lebanese and Canadian citizenship?
Aren't they "really" more Lebanese than they are Canadian?
The short answer to these questions is that all the Canadian refugees who have so far reached Cyprus are, indeed, Canadians. They hold Canadian passports or have permanent residence status in Canada.
But those factors are, in a way, technicalities. Surely there is more to being Canadian than possessing a certain document.
All you have to do is talk to the refugees as they scramble down from the boats that have brought them here.
Although they have friends and family in Lebanon — whom they often visit — they mostly live in places such as Mississauga or Lachine, where they drink Tim Hortons coffee and dread the daily commute along the Gardiner Expressway or Decarie Blvd. Their kids go to Canadian public schools and speak the same language as Don Cherry, only better.
They're Canadian.
"Yes, they are," said one member of the Canadian rescue operation here. "That's certainly my impression."
Consider Laren Chemali, a 29-year-old elementary school teacher who lives in Toronto.
She flew to Lebanon earlier this month in order to prepare for her wedding on July 28. Her fiancé, who also lives in Toronto, was to make the trip at a later date, but the war with Israel intervened.
Now the wedding has been called off, at least in its original form, and Chemali was among 1,200 refugees who arrived here Saturday, along with her mother, brother and two cousins.
"It's unfortunate," she said of the botched nuptials in Lebanon. "We had planned it specially for our grandparents."
But not everything is lost. Chemali is alive and safe, and there are banquet halls in Toronto as well as in Beirut.
"We're going to get married in Toronto now," she said. "Maybe on the same date." |
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