Thank God For Canadian Aid

Coordinating what? What exactly did Canada do to provide the immediate help needed? I’m willing to be educated on this because I’m damned if I can see that we did anything short of mouth a few platitudes. Canadians, on the other hand, have been extremely generous. Even our corporations have opened their wallets; some of them have shown themselves to be very good corporate citizens. I don’t mean to belittle the efforts of corporations; that is not my intent — but their efforts will mostly be funded by taxpayers. Their charitable donations become tax deductible business expenses and the taxes they are able to avoid by these donations, perfectly legally, have to be made up somewhere — and that means you and me. Don’t misunderstand, I am not being critical of this — regardless of whether corporate largesse costs you and me money when it all comes out in the wash, these corporations have acted quickly and have loaned their very capable organizational skills to help coordinate the raising of funds and awareness. Despite my general loathing for the corporate world, I am grateful that they have willingly rushed into the breech to help. But, again, I am really annoyed with my government. Canada has for years bragged that we are always there to help when catastrophe strikes and that other nations know they can rely on us. I think, in that regard, that this may be our lowest hour. I’m sure the South Asians are grateful for all the assistance they are receiving, including ours. But I expect they’ll have a hard time describing later just what it is we did for them. An article in the January 10 edition of the Globe & Mail reports on complaints that our diplomats in South Asia have proven to be close to useless at this time of crisis. The officials defend themselves by saying they showed empathy to every Canadian, a point apparently disputed by some Canadians in the area. But they have done precious little for the South Asians. And the excuses of the government for our lackluster showing are getting to be predictable, and thoroughly annoying. We couldn’t deploy the DART quickly because, well, it’s a big effort. The fact that it was allegedly designed for rapid response does not appear to have entered the government’s consciousness. We can’t change or suspend the rules that govern financial aid so that victims in South Asia can get assistance now rather than several months from now. We can’t even manage to put any serious effort into trying to locate our own dead; we’ve left that to local governments. There have been only a few times in my life where I have questioned my allegiance to Canada. But this is one of those times when I find my nationality to be an embarrassment.