Upside Down World: Canada's Failed Aid to Haiti

[tuvor]

The six month mark after Haiti's Jan. 12 earthquake saw a flurry of news reports in Canada and around the world. The depictions of the harsh conditions still prevailing for most earthquake victims took many people by surprise. The relative silence of the media over the last few months led many to assume that the international aid effort had accomplished much more than it has.

On the eve of July 12, contradictory or exaggerated claims were made about Canadian government aid to Haiti. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Canwest news agency reported that Canada has committed "more than $1 billion" for Haiti. Yet only days earlier, on July 9, the Quebec French-language daily Le Devoir, and the English-language Canadian Press news agency, reported that Canada has not given a dime to the Haiti Reconstruction Fund established by the March 31 United Nations Donor Conference in New York. So what is the true record of Canada's assistance to Haiti since the earthquake, and what more needs to be done to assist the hundreds of thousands of victims who have received little or no aid?

The Numbers

In a July 9 press release, written as a rebuttal to the aforementioned Le Devoir and Canadian Press reports, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon and Minister of International Cooperation and Development Bev Oda stated that Canada had contributed $150 million to Haiti in the weeks following the quake. The ministers also said an additional $400 million has been pledged to Haiti for the next two years.

At a subsequent July 12 press conference, the ministers upped the figure, saying that Canada has spent, or is committing, a total of $1.1 billion in aid to Haiti. But their time frame of commitment predates the earthquake considerably, covering the years 2006 to 2012.

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http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2625-canadas-failed-aid-to-haiti

[CHIMO]

1. What Might

One expect. We participated in the overthrow of a democratically elected government. Now we are looking for rewards.

[Spazito]

2. Lying assholes...

I knew right from the start the harper cabal would renege on our commitments. They do it every time. Despicable.

[BolivarianHero]

3. This is why Haitian-Canadians vote BQ...

They know the NDP can't get elected where they live and that Liberals or Conservatives in power in Canada means more support for their ancestral homeland's most tyrannical and reactionary factions, an obvious catastrophe for many of their friends and loved ones.

[Bragi]

4. So the "matching" aid funds were a fraud

So the government says it will match the generosity of Canadian donors, Canadians then give generously, then the government just moves already-committed money from one pile to another.

Man, our national media are truly pathetic to miss this kind of thing. What gets me is that they don't even try any more.