Crawford

Geez, why would Canada do all of that in Haiti when it doesn't even do it in Canada?

Excellent Idea!

A strong national commitment to helping another nation that is in dire need of help would be of inestimable value to Canadians.

Afghanistan is remote from Canada in every sense and it is clear regardless of which political party forms government that our military presence there is temporary. Haiti is a different story in every respect. The case Crawford makes is compelling. I wonder if our Prime Minister is as interested in talking to the Governor General about this idea as he is willing to call her when he needs a favour?

Save Haiti...From the Canadian Government

Crawford Kilian neglects to mention that Canada has stepped in and really tried to make a difference in Haiti already.

In February 2004, the Canadian government supported the overthrow of Haiti's democratically elected leader, Aristide. The Canadian government also helped coordinate the occupation of Haiti by a UN force that has committed atrocities, like the July 2005 massacre of supporters of Aristide's Lavalas party in Cite Soleil. The Canadian government has also facilitated the jailing of dissidents like Father Jean-Juste, who Amnesty International called a "prisoner of conscience".

Given this recent historical context to the relationship between Canada and Haiti, it makes little sense for Kilian to portray Canada as the moral agent to "bring Haiti into the civilized world". Maybe a more modest goal for well-meaning Canadians like Kilian would be to help save Haitians from the Canadian government!

Where there is devastation and death, there is also hope

Canada's response is always a testimony to our compassion, even the Americans recognize Canada's contribution as part of our history and reputation.

I grew up seeing compassion as an active desire to alleviate another's suffering. It is often, though not inevitably, the key component in what manifests in the social context as altruism.

Our Haitian-born Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean offered an emotional thank you to Canada, calling for solidarity with Haitians and urged them to be courageous.

Many of us who served in the military, spent time in operations that brought humanitarian relief, and although some question the CF's conflicting ethics, the Governor General, in one brief moment, embodied the emotions required for ethics:  Seeing, Feeling, and Doing.

A proud day to be a Canadian.

We already have a partnership

...and Canada is greatly appreciated.

"But all we need to do to remind both the world and ourselves Canada is one of the good guys internationally, is to point out our record of nation-building in Haiti, long before this week’s devastating earthquake.

That includes $555 million in aid earmarked for Haiti from 2006 to 2011, second only to our spending in Afghanistan.

As Oxford University Prof. Paul Collier, an adviser to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on Haiti, recently told the Ottawa Citizen, Canada has a “very important leadership role” there because we’re more trusted than other countries, given our long record of humanitarian assistance. ..."

http://www.torontosun.com/comment/editorial/2010/01/13/12453186.html

"Canada’s deep engagement in Haiti falls within Canada’s priorities for the Americas and focuses on Prosperity, Security, and Democratic Governance. Haiti is the highest beneficiary of Canadian development assistance in the Americas and the second highest in the worlds (after Afghanistan), delivered by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).Canada continues to play an important role in international efforts to restore security and stability and support long term reconstruction through the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and through Foreign Affairs and International Trades Canada’s Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force (START). "

http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/haiti/bilateral_relations_bilaterales/canada_haiti.aspx?menu_id=7&menu=L

"February 22, 2008

PORT-AU-PRINCE – Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier pledged $555 million in fresh aid to Haiti Friday, as he wrapped up a three-day visit to the impoverished Caribbean nation.

The funds, to be paid over the next five years, were earmarked to help build roads, police precincts and implement social and economic programs in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country, Bernier told reporters.

“Compared to other donor countries, our assistance to Haiti is one of the biggest per-capita contributions,” he said."

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=4dab8f8d-226f-4017-94ef-fe95eaf3973f

" Unemployment rate: NA%
note: widespread unemployment and underemployment; more than two-thirds of the labor force do not have formal jobs
Population below poverty line: 80% (2003 est.)"

So, how can we be assured

So, how can we be assured that those wonderful millions are not ending up in the pockets of our own corporate mafia with multimillion salaries, or their fellow "wealth creators" in Haiti, eager to jump on the "prosperity" bandwagon ?

Haiti is a prime example of the pre earthquake devastation caused by the simple fact that:

"Wealth can not be created, only taken from other sectors, the environment and the future"

Would the multinational corporate, especially the agribiz mafia ever permit the return of millions to their lands that fed them for hundreds of years?

No bloody way. It would not be "wealth creating" at all and crash the stockmarkets.

So, the Haitians, and billions around the world, including many here in Canada, will just keep on suffering and dying in the service of warped ideological and economic theories causing the biggest crime wave in human history.

Ed Deak.

Haiti's Misfortune

Why is Haiti in such a dire state, when the Dominican Republic, right next door on the same island is so prosperous?
Solve that problem, and you forever solve Haiti's state.

Tourism & Free Trade

"The Dominican Republic has enjoyed strong GDP growth since 2005 and continued to post sound gains through mid-2008. The global recession, however, had a significant impact on GDP growth in the latter half of the year as tourism and remittances, two of the Dominican Republic's most important economic contributors, showed signs of slowing. The economy is highly dependent upon the US, the destination for about two-thirds of exports. Remittances from the US amount to about a tenth of GDP, equivalent to almost half of exports and three-quarters of tourism receipts. The country has long been viewed primarily as an exporter of sugar, coffee, and tobacco but in recent years the service sector has overtaken agriculture as the economy's largest employer due to growth in tourism and free trade zones."

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/dr.html

Canada Has Terrorized Haiti for Years

Crawford Kilian lives on some strange planet, where Haiti is poor and starving because of natural disaster and misfortune. This is arrant nonsense!
Haiti was self-sufficient in food production thirty years ago. All of that has been destroyed by the forced neoliberal opening-up of the country to vicious, exploitatative neoliberal trade regimes, achieved by overthrowing (twice in two decades!) the democratically elected popular government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
In 2004, Canada sent soldiers to participate in the Franco-US-Canadian coup d'état. Aristide was kidnapped by US Navy Seal thugs and "rendered" to South Africa, where he languishes today without a passport or a people.
Haiti is the ultimate neoliberal success story, where the people mostly starving and unemployed people are terrorized by "UN troops" that are there to enforce the ongoing immiseration and exploitation of the Haitian people by foreign corporations.
That is Canada's role in Haiti, along with the phoney "NGO" operations that serve to further undermine the integrity of the Haitian state.
For his role in adding the terror of Canadian arms to Haiti, Paul Martin - to the extent that he is remembered at all - will go down as the most brutal little militarist among his neoliberal ilk.
Crawford Kilian, you need to pull up your panties and write about something that you might possibly understand - like church picnics, or kids' birthday parties. Get real!

yeah but!

Sorry to rain on your parade, but before we get excited about saving a nation, lets examine just what it is we are trying to save?
What Haiti needs more than anything is condoms!
Solve the population explotion and you solved the rest of the problems!
Certainly the earthquake is a terrible disaster and we must help on that score, but the rest is hogwash!

Canada Has Terrorized Haiti for Years - Further Reading

I neglected to attach this link to my earlier posting. It covers much of the ground blithely ignored by Canada the Good™ theorist and dreamer Kilian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/13/our-role-in-haitis-plight

ashamed

I'm ashamed at the part Canada took in overthrowing Aristide's democratically elected government. Spending millions of dollars to "put a couple of regiments into Haiti to maintain order" is %&#$ing RETARDED. How about if we had put a couple of regiments into Haiti when the band of war criminal thugs was marching on the capital to overthrow Aristide? That could have made a positive difference. Nope, we waited until after they had taken control, and then we propped them up, and we are still propping them up today. The best thing we could do is support Aristide in returning to his rightful position, and let him finish the projects he was working on - instead of cutting him off at the knees by withdrawing aid when his plans didn't fit in the globalization game book, and then standing by while he was overthrown by a terrorist coup. This fluffy over the rainbow crap turns my stomach - because of our *shameful* history in Haiti.

Damning the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8127

A Very Canadian Coup d’état in Haiti: The Top 10 Ways that Canada’s Government Helped the 2004 Coup and its Reign of Terror
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/60/60.htm

Responsibility to Protect?
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/3153

No Time for Democracy - Six years of Canada in Haiti
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/foreign_policy/2006/12/05/no_time_fo.html

etc etc etc :-(

GDP? What GDP? It is a

GDP? What GDP? It is a fraud invented by the priesthood of economists, a kind of Ponzi scheme, to account destruction and exploitation as "benefits"

Like the sale of Canada and resources being part of the GDP and called "income".

No business could survive by using the present economic accounting system, but it is rammed down our throats by the priesthood of economists, politicians and their corporate owners.

We, our descendants and the whole world will pay a heavy price for the fraud of the GDP. It is already killing tens of millions around the world every year.

Ed Deak.

The Canadian Myth exposed?

Re: "If no one else is going to do anything for Haiti except offer condolences, Canadians had better step in -- if only so we can sleep at night and look at ourselves in the mirror the next morning."

Three questions

1) Did you watch the news last night? Every country in the world is all over this, as they should be; and they seemed to get there with more substantial, actual help – and speaking in terms of long-term commitment, far faster than Canada.

2) Where were the world's (especially Canada's) "let's help Haiti" sentiments before January 12?

3) How come the international community can send multitudes of people, money, food and water now, while we couldn't share a fraction of this bounty with them before?

The world's interconnected vision, values, politics, finance, and systems need a dramatic paradigm shift. Maybe Canada could start by saying so-long to Harper and finding a leader with 21 C vision, intelligence, and courage. I've been looking, but I sure haven't seen any of those lately, have you?

Keep looking!! Never give up! And in the meantime, do what you can... together we can make a difference.

Wendy Bradley

Since you don't know; Canada had, previous to the earthquake, devoted $555 million to Haiti for a multitude of assistance purposes. (IF you happen to be interested there are links and details further up this thread)

If YOU had looked at the BBC last night you would have seen three of the first photographs to come out of Haiti after the quake and one of those photographs was of a Canadian rescue helicopter, on the ground, already deployed and in action. Canadian military heavy aircraft have already arrived and unloaded personnel, supplies and equipment to augment the existing and continuing substantial Canadian military and civilians that were there before the quake.

Such an ongoing deliberate tragedy

My late cousin, a mathemetician, was teaching at the American University when one of the coups happened. She said the school had fantastic computer equipment but no diesel to run the generators. The $2 Mil US a year that was supposed to pay the bills was instead siphoned into a private overseas account by a member of the elite.

She became head of the university at 2 AM when the Maryknoll missionary who had been chancellor burst into her room, threw a set of keys on her bed and said..."your it, I'm out of here."

My cousin stayed in a dangerous situation for about 2 months to help in the transition to a real administrator. In spite of harassment by the Ton Ton Macoute, she stayed because she found the Haitian students intelligent,serious and dedicated. She said they were a joy to teach.

Wendy Bradley

The earthquake struck at 5pm local time on the 12th.

"On January 13, 2010, Canada deployed the Interdepartmental Strategic Support Team and the Reconnaisance element of the Canadian Forces Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART). The above CC-130 Hercules tactical transport carried the lead element of the DART as well as military equipment and medical supplies."

http://www.international.gc.ca/humanitarian-humanitaire/earthquake_seisme_haiti.aspx

Who was there before Canada, Wendy?

Thank You!

Thanks, whoever you are – Wonder why don't you say.

I didn't know to what extent we have been involved. Wish a leader in the Canadian government or the Canadian media would have helped me to know and understand this information – before Jan 12. Perhaps they will now. In any case: Glad you did... and I thank the Tyee for offering a place to share questions, thoughts, and sometimes, even partial answers!

Sorry... I find it hard to take Steven Harper or Peter McKay seriously. I'll dig deeper. And I will continue to keep watch for a leader who I admire and want to listen to because he or she tells us what we need to know – and explains to us why it's crucial we do.

r'man

Are you saying $55 million from Canada balances out a hundred years of US domination through installed regimes?

Oh, My

Our emails crossed in the ozone.

I see you aren't as interested in questions and conversation as you are in one-upmanship. "Who was there first" wasn't the intent of my original note, maybe I miswrote it.

My apologies. Signing off now.

Boiling it down

Hard to believe Canada sending the equivalent of $6 a head to Haiti hasn't helped.

McColonialism

I feel badly for Haitians, and as a private citizen intend to make a financial donation. But the thought of our nation simply taking another under its wing reeks.

First, the optics are terrible. This is annexation with a happy face.

Second, on what basis would Canada agree to absorb the horrific costs of building, policing, and educating this country? There is no such thing as a free lunch. This assistance would accrue stipulations and conditions that would amount to a takeover.

I strongly advocate a MYOB approach to the rest of the world, apart from such movement of people, products and capital that is agreeable to both parties.

Haiti

As 'mikev' and 'MalcolmIslander' have already pointed out Canada has not been a good guy in Haiti even if we want to cling to the biased reporting that our mainstream media provides us. America supported vicious dictators in Haiti for decades but the people of Haiti resisted just as they resisted the French before gaining their 'independence' from that country. They finally elected a fair minded leader in 1991 who wanted to reduce poverty and share the wealth of the nation with the people. Aristide was overthrown by the US and this was supported by France and Canada because in this "American lake" you do what the US wants and that does not include sharing your resources with the poor. Cuba has suffered a similar fate for wanting to go its own way. Until Haitians have the freedom to run their own affairs their country will be another failed state that resists America. Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan are a few other current examples.

Frank

You are using an incorrect number in your previous two posts. It's not $55 million it's $555 million.

Just the facts, please!

The one fact that seem to have been lost in this barrage of goodwill is in this quote:
"Haiti is now a country of just over 9 million, most of them desperately poor and half of them born since 1990."

You may blame religion of maybe lack of any other form of entertainment, the fact is that no already heavily populated country can handle such a baby-boom.

Aristide

For those interested there is an interesting interview from 2007 with Jean-Bertrand Aristide here:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n04/peter-hallward/an-interview-with-jean-bertrand-aristide

While I believe that

While I believe that Crawford Killian's heart is in the right place, his piece is in many ways an example of the kind of thinking that hasn't helped Haiti in the past.

Haiti has been in a bad way for a long, long time, and for almost as long the developed world has been trying to help. The last thing Haiti needs is another large-scale interventionist project that will disappear after 10 years. There have been, and are presently, dozens if not hundreds of aid projects underway in Haiti, but many of them are of a fixed duration, or pull out during times of political turmoil.

It is also inherently problematic to send in foreign troops to provide security; locals inevitably view it as occupation (imagine how you would feel if you were on the way to buy groceries and saw tanks full of armed Brazilians rolling by).

I think the best idea Crawford has is in regards to education. A permanent program to pay for a Canadian university education for Haitians and Haitian-Canadians alike, provided they then work for either CIDA or the UN mission in Haiti for a number of years afterwards, (similar to the incentive we have to send doctors and nurses up north) seems like a good idea, especially if it was permanent option and not just for 10 years. Increased Haitian representation within those outside development agencies would surely increase their effectiveness. The rural University of Fondwa in Haiti operates under a similar structure, encouraging graduates to return to their home communities with their new-found knowledge, and to me is one of the best examples of a project there that is actually working.

All this aside, Haiti is in a state of dire emergency right now, and for the moment needs any kind of help it can get. Let's just hope that in the long term, we are not doing more damage than good.

Alive is right

Population booms entrench poverty, which in turn handcuff attempts at increasing education, democracy, cultural and political empowerment. Absolutely.

But this is a realization that has only been put into government policy in China, where it is subject to harsh and perhaps warranted criticism on human rights grounds.

I'm not sure what anyone or any country is supposed to do about it. Perhaps talking about it is all that one can do. And maybe it is enough.

r'man

"You are using an incorrect number in your previous two posts. It's not $55 million it's $555 million."

And that number is meaningless anyway because its pledged money. We didn't actually give it all to Haiti.

A basket case for as long as I can remember...

When I heard the radio news, especially the outpouring of sympathy from Obama and his administration, our Foreign Affairs Minister and our Governor General yesterday, I sighed. My son asked me why? I said all this sympathy is fine, but Haiti has been a basket case for as long as I can remember. It is probably the consistently poorest country in the Americas.

Yes, we should help them recover, but we and the rest if the aid-givers should finally help them build a reasonably-functioning society that provides better than the meager and bleak existence they have had for years.

That said, I can offer no specific solutions at this time. I don't know enough about their problems and the long history of failed reforms, etc.

Haiti has been under foreign

Haiti has been under foreign rule, US military occupation much of the time, propping up Citibank control, etc. forever, stealing their economy blind and killing their people if they dared to speak up.
Surprising the colonizers didn't kill their elected president Aristide, because he tried to make changes for his people. And Canada was part of that coup to install a government subservient to foreign rulers.

"Wealth creating good economics" I suppose, as we're sinking into the same hole.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/14-13

Ed Deak.

Thanks for the responses

i'm grateful for the number and energy of the comments on my piece. Yes, I'm very aware that our role in the ouster of Aristide is not one of our prouder moments--and I'm glad you've made a point of it when it's been shoved down the memory hole for the last five years.

Even if we've behaved badly, we can redeem ourselves by behaving better: Bring Haitian students here and send them home to play constructive roles in their country's professions and institutions. Plant trees in the lateritic soil before it turns completely to brick. If white Canadian francophone soldiers are unwelcome, bring Haitian soldiers here for intensive training, and then send them home as well to protect their people instead of exploiting them.

Some commenters seem to think that our earlier sins make us incapable of doing anything good in the world. I prefer to think that recognizing and confessing those sins could help put us back on our feet as the world's friends rather than the Americans' stooges. Haiti is as good a confessional as any.

Crawford........The question

Crawford........The question is: "Who is "we" ?" We have governments who automatically become dictatorships for the duration of their offices, as we can witnessing it here in BC and "we" can only jump up and down.

I have lived under every known ideology of the 20th century in 4 countries, sentenced to death and to prison camp, managed to escape both. So I have seen them all. Fought against communism for 45 years and now, for the rest of my life, against its idiot twin, collectiving capitalism, that destroys and kills even more.

It is not the people who are bad, and not countries who wage war against others, or engage in colonizations and enslavement, but governments, rulers and powers behind them, forcing their actions.

Colonizing powers used to use religion for their criminal acts, and still are using it in some parts of the world. Here we now have the Priesthood of the Money God dictating governments and billions of people into subserviance to the same criminal colonizers who once occupied continents, enslaved and killed millions for the same reason their descendants are doing it now: To steal people blind and excuse it as "divine order", or as the late Gen DeGaulle of France once said "Countries have no friends, only interests"

But even there, is it really countries who have only interests, or the crooks, pimps and jerks ruling them ?

Having lived with all kinds of people and nationalities, I firmly believe that if left alone to sort out their problems, the vast majority could build a peaceful and constructive world, but it wouldn't be profitable for the perennial "wealth creators" , so we're having permanent wars and crimes for the purpose of legalized theft.

And Haiti is an excellent example of it. Could people help ? Of course! But would the rulers of the world permit it? No way ! It would crash the the sacred stockmarkets

Cheers, Ed, Ed Deak.

the elite

I can't help but wonder what will be the response of the "elite" of Haiti? No doubt they will find ways to benefit from this tragedy and usurp a good portion of international aide.

Canada has been instrumental

Canada has been instrumental in helping the US overthrow the legally elected government of Haiti, led by Aristide. It helped install an unelected dictator in his place, solely because that person is more "friendly" to US interests. Canada is cooperating with the US/UN in banning the most popular political party - the one that won the last election - in order to satisfy US corporations desires to continue plundering Haiti.

Why should Haitians trust Canada anymore? Haven't we done ENOUGH damage?

Timely viewpoints, Crawford.

One of the things about Haiti that sticks in my mind is my astonishment upon reading that Mother Theresa had remarked after a visit with Papa Doc Duvalier, that "He and his family are true benefactors of the Haitian poor".

Another is the difficulty I had in learning that Aristides was neither "incompetent", "employer of criminal death squads" or "running a completely undemocratic administration" - all informaion courtesy of sources like the Vacouver Sun - but that instead, the real problem was that he was a Socialist and no friend of the US-installed Corporadoes or of Duvalier's then still-powerful Ton Ton Macoute, the quasi-military arm of the oligarchs.

I agree with Crawford that given the total disarray that Haiti is now in, the opporunity is now present to put it on its feet, and to correct the sins we've visited upon it in the past.

Given what I believed about Obama six months ago, I'd have seen that as a possiility, but now I'm definitely not so sure. I AM sure, though, that if Harper even suspected such to be a possibility, his current hearts and flowers attitude would vanish in an instant.

"pledged money"

The money Canada pledged was only after Aristide was deposed. The money is to be controlled by the same people who supported Duvalier and his regime.

The money is basically a bribe to try to have Haitians forget that Canada cooperated and participated in yet another American overthrow of a popularly elected government that was critical of the USA. There is no indication that the people of Haiti will benefit in any way from that money - it will simply vanish into the pockets of the right-wing terrorists that the USA and Canada continue to support.

To claim that Canada is a "good guy" because we've pledged any amount of money (little if any of which has been actually paid) is to be completely ignorant of the facts of our participation in the latest American government overthrow.

The type of American-led intervention that has installed, protected, funded and cultivated dictators and monsters like Duvalier in the first place. Or other murderous regimes like Pinochet (Chile), Banzer (Bolivia), Batista (Cuba), Branco (Brazil), Cedras (Haiti again), Cerezo (Guatemala), Cordova (Honduras), Martinez (El Salvador), Christiani (El Salvador again, because the people there hadn't suffered enough), Montt (Guatemala), Noriega (Panama), Somoza (Nicaragua), Stroessner (Paraguay), Trujillo (Dominican Republic), Videla (Argentina), and not forgetting Alexandre (Haiti, yet again), to mention just the Central and South American regimes the US helped out. Most of whom owe their initial installation to US "intervention" of one kind or another. All of whom are famous mainly for their violence, their murders, their extra-judicial killings, their whole-hearted support of American corporations in their territory, and the amount of money the USA poured into their coffers.

Now Haiti has a "president" that won an election thanks to outright fraud by the US and UN, and the next election is looking like they might outlaw the most popular party altogether, effectively barring the one party that stood for Haitians against US corporations.

Yeah, I'd say that Canada has done more than enough damage there. Since I doubt that our government has the balls to stand up to the US-led "mission" whose sole intent is to install a US-friendly government, I guess the best we could do is try to help out as much as we can in the current disaster, then pull out completely.

It was truly a sad day to be Canadian when our government agreed to participate in that particular bit of American foreign policy. We are now no better than they are, and our hands are now just as bloody and dirty.

Contraception before opportunity?

"Haiti is now a country of just over 9 million, most of them desperately poor and half of them born since 1990."

You may blame religion of maybe lack of any other form of entertainment, the fact is that no already heavily populated country can handle such a baby-boom."

Oh? Try again. There are plenty that are handling it just fine - in fact Haiti at 29.6 births per 1000 population is only in the middle of the pack, and as a result it's population is growing at leass than 2% a year - less than Canada when immmigration is included.

Set that against any number of countries - like Lesotho, which despite more than 40 live births per thousand, is shrinking due to the predations of disease and emigration. Or Iraq, the same rate, but a death rate 16 times higher than in the US.

Haiti's life expectancy has increased from 43 to nearly 60 in a few years, and as a result a small bulge is swelling through the population. But even as it does, the birth rate per family is falling from over 5 in the 1980s to the high 3s now.

Whatever population pressures exist are eased by the high infant mortality of over 60 per thousand, which is a direct function of poverty and lack of opportunity, not fertility. That Haiti also has the highest GINI coefficient in the Caribbean and the second highest in the Western hemisphere (indicating the widest gap disparity in wealth) is no accident.

Our aid has helped. But it would have been more help if Aristide was permitted to carry out some of his reforms. Contraception has fuck-all to do with it.

Revolving door aid

I know people who at various times have worked on Canadian international aid projects. It is quite common if they are infrastructure projects, we give them money for a project that involves paying Canadian companies to provide materials, goods, services and expertise. While the finished project will hopefully benefit the aid recipient, very little of the Canadian donation may actually cycle through the local economy where it would generate a chain of transactions that would stimulate the economy.

Frequently, a sizable portion of the money comes back to Canada via this 'revolving door'.

wow realisticman

That was actually a great link you posted there:

"For those interested there is an interesting interview from 2007 with Jean-Bertrand Aristide here:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n04/peter-hallward/an-interview-with-jean-bertrand-aristide"

My respect for Aristide has only grown after reading that interview, thanks for posting it. Again the best thing we could do for Haiti is to bring about his safe return to his home country.

Crawford:

"Bring Haitian students here and send them home to play constructive roles in their country's professions and institutions."

A great idea. I would love to see this implemented, but I have to say my hopes aren't very high, especially with our current government. In fact I might even go so far as to selfishly say I'd rather see free university education for Canadians before we go handing it out to foreigners, even if they are as deserving of our reparations as Haitians are.

"Some commenters seem to think that our earlier sins make us incapable of doing anything good in the world."

It's not a question of capability. We could literally pave the streets of Port Au Prince with gold. But remember the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

It's not even a question of will - could you find anyone in Canada who would say that helping Haiti become a better place to be is a stupid idea?

It's a question of trust. Who would trust the people in power to actually do the morally right thing?

We've *pledged* $550 million:
-pledged, not given, as mentioned by Frank
-don't even really plan to give (revolving door aid, as mentioned by Dave49)

We've committed to *spend* $550 million. On what? Training and weapons for the security forces, for the use of the next dictator after yet another coup? Aristide disbanded the military for a very good reason. On "democracy"? Like pouring money on groups who agitate the way we like, a not so subtle way to keep a steering hand on the politics down there? On infrastructure? So that the consumerist crap that Disney gets made there for pennies per hour can get to market more efficiently? Sure throw in a school or a hospital here or there so that it makes good PR. Yuck.

How much of that $550 million do you think will ever pass through the hands of an actual Haitian so poor they are reduced to feeding their children mudcakes?

It's not a question of capability or of will. It's a question of I don't trust the monsters in control any further than I could hurl them, to do anything in the interests of anyone but themselves. And in this case that's not based on dogma or paranoia, it's based on a well documented deadfully shameful past.

If I had a vote, I would say just leave them alone. They can't get any worse off. And the shining example of Aristide shows that they could do a lot better on their own, if we just quit our incessant meddling. We do more harm than good, never mind whatever you or I might wish for.

First, identify the problem ...

An instructive essay:

Haiti Earthquake: Made in the USA
Why the Blood Is on Our [U.S.'s] Hands

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/14-13

According to the news last

According to the news last night, it is not $550. but $55. million.

The $550. million must be some propaganda message to mislead people into believing......

Ed Deak.

Further to Ed's.....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100114/wl_canada_afp/haitiaidquakecanada_20100114163653

another link

Here is a very concise analysis of what Aristide was against, why he was overthrown by the USA, and why Haiti has remained so poor all these years, and why it will REMAIN poor so long as the USA continues to install its puppets there:

http://www.alternet.org/world/145183/haiti_didn%27t_become_a_poor_nation_all_on_its_own_--_the_u.s%27s_hidden_role_in_the_disaster

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Frank, Ed and others are wrong. Canada spends at least $100 million a year in Haiti and just for Rickie W, this started before the present Governor General.

A couple of years ago Macleans did a long piece on Haiti.

http://www.macleans.ca/canada/national/article.jsp?content=20080402_96252_96252&page=1

BC Mary and others have pointed out other historical notes on Haiti and the history of Latin America and the Caribbean is worthy of study but since the earthquake this is academic. The need for the people there now - is needed now!

Haitian Earthquake Part 1...

ommonDreams.org January 14, 2010

Haitian Earthquake: Made in the USA

Why the Blood Is on Our Hands

by Ted Rall

As grim accounts of the earthquake in Haiti came in, the accounts in
U.S.-controlled state media all carried the same descriptive
sentence:
"Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere..."
Gee, I wonder how that happened?

You'd think Haiti would be loaded. After all, it made a lot of people
rich.

How did Haiti get so poor? Despite a century of American colonialism,

occupation, and propping up corrupt dictators? Even though the CIA
staged coups d'état against every democratically elected president
they ever had?

It's an important question. An earthquake isn't just an earthquake.
The same 7.0 tremor hitting San Francisco wouldn't kill nearly as
many people as in Port-au-Prince.

"Looking at the pictures, essentially it looks as if (the buildings
are of) breezeblock or cinderblock construction, and what you need in
an earthquake zone is metal bars that connect the blocks so that they
stay together when they get shaken," notes Sandy Steacey, director of
the Environmental Science Research Institute at the University of
Ulster in Northern Ireland. "In a wealthy country with good seismic
building codes that are enforced, you would have some damage, but not
very much."

When a pile of cinderblocks falls on you, your odds of survival are
long. Even if you miraculously survive, a poor country like Haiti
doesn't have the equipment, communications infrastructure or
emergency service personnel to pull you out of the rubble in time.
And if your neighbors get you out, there's no ambulance to take you
to the hospital--or doctor to treat you once you get there.

Earthquakes are random events. How many people they kill is
predetermined. In Haiti this week, don't blame tectonic plates.
Ninety-nine percent of the death toll is attributable to poverty.

So the question is relevant. How'd Haiti become so poor?

The story begins in 1910, when a U.S. State Department-National City
Bank of New York (now called Citibank) consortium bought the Banque
National d'Haïti--Haiti's only commercial bank and its national
treasury--in effect transferring Haiti's debts to the Americans. Five
years later, President Woodrow Wilson ordered troops to occupy the
country in order to keep tabs on "our" investment.

>From 1915 to 1934, the U.S. Marines imposed harsh military
occupation, murdered Haitians patriots and diverted 40 percent of
Haiti's gross domestic product to U.S. bankers. Haitians were banned
from government jobs. Ambitious Haitians were shunted into the puppet

military, setting the stage for a half-century of U.S.-backed
military dictatorship.

The U.S. kept control of Haiti's finances until 1947.

The Haitian Earthquake 2...

Still--why should Haitians complain? Sure, we stole 40 percent of
Haiti's national wealth for 32 years. But we let them keep 60
percent.

Whiners.

Despite having been bled dry by American bankers and generals, civil
disorder prevailed until 1957, when the CIA installed President-for-
Life François "Papa Doc" Duvalier. Duvalier's brutal Tonton Macoutes
paramilitary goon squads murdered at least 30,000 Haitians and drove
educated people to flee into exile. But think of the cup as half-
full: fewer people in the population means fewer people competing for

the same jobs!

Upon Papa Doc's death in 1971, the torch passed to his even more
dissolute 19-year-old son, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. The U.S.,

cool to Papa Doc in his later years, quickly warmed back up to his
kleptomaniacal playboy heir. As the U.S. poured in arms and trained
his army as a supposed anti-communist bulwark against Castro's Cuba,
Baby Doc stole an estimated $300 to $800 million from the national
treasury, according to Transparency International. The money was
placed in personal accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere.

Under U.S. influence, Baby Doc virtually eliminated import tariffs
for U.S. goods. Soon Haiti was awash predatory agricultural imports
dumped by American firms. Domestic rice farmers went bankrupt. A
nation that had been agriculturally self-sustaining collapsed. Farms
were abandoned. Hundreds of thousands of farmers migrated to the
teeming slums of Port-au-Prince.

The Duvalier era, 29 years in all, came to an end in 1986 when
President Ronald Reagan ordered U.S. forces to whisk Baby Doc to
exile in France, saving him from a popular uprising.

Once again, Haitians should thank Americans. Duvalierism was "tough
love." Forcing Haitians to make do without their national treasury
was our nice way or encouraging them to work harder, to lift
themselves up by their bootstraps. Or, in this case, flipflops.
Anyway.

The U.S. has been all about tough love ever since. We twice deposed
the populist and popular democratically-elected president Jean-
Bertrand Aristide. The second time, in 2004, we even gave him a free
flight to the Central African Republic! (He says the CIA kidnapped
him, but whatever.) Hey, he needed a rest. And it was kind of us to
support a new government formed by former Tonton Macoutes.

Yet, despite everything we've done for Haiti, they're still a fourth-
world failed state on a fault line.

And still, we haven't given up. American companies like Disney
generously pay wages to their sweatshop workers of 28 cents an hour.
What more do these ingrates want?

Ted Rall is the author of the new book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central
Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel
analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.

Interference in Haiti

It has been the interference in Haiti's affairs that have caused the problems. The best thing the OAS could do would be to put a sea blockade around the island to stop people like us and Chevez from interfering with the progress of the country.

Aid just ensures that people don't take responsibility for their actions. We should help with the results of this national disaster then, along with everyone else, leave them alone so they can develop.

The brutality that is life in Haiti's shanty towns

It's ironic to think that many of the poorest who live in Port-au-Prince's shanty towns have escaped the worst of the damage.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703959804575007290503586562.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories

To see the real carnage that has been wrought on the poor of Haiti by Haitian police and UN troops watch some of the videos on this youtube site. That is if you can stomach the sickening violence that is depicted. Be forewarned, these video's are not sanitized for North American consumption.

http://www.youtube.com/user/longmemoryprod

R/M old man....

Not only correct, but profoundly so! However, continuing my "arch cynicism", there is an underlying reason for the US/UN involvement that has nothing do with humanitarian concerns. Were it otherwise, Haiti would no longer still be "the poorest nation" after the years of relief efforts.

Dealing with natural disasters

Natural disaster is the key here.

Even though there has been far too much environmental damage done by foreign nationals in Haiti (in the name of economic growth)the natural disasters are the ones we need to pay attention to. Never mind global warning - just look at the facts - how much damage has been done to this part of the world by hurricanes and earthquakes, etc.

Rebuilding on the same site after a hurricane, tsunami, volcano, earthquake or other natural force has damaged an area is trying to change mother nature and we are not going to succeed no matter how much $$ is poured in to the affected area.

Work with nature. If the conditions are no longer suitable for human sustainability then we should be spending the $$ being generously donated to relocating the communities to areas that are safe. When the Katrina struck New Orleans (which is below sea level) the people should have been relocated. Rebuilding in the same place puts the people at risk - again. Nature will continue to rule.

Haiti - instead of countries around the world sending money (which apparently leads to instant arrival of guerilla groups from around the world to intercept as much as they can before it gets to the people who need it) maybe Canada can be a leader and offer more than money. Maybe we can offer hope in a new land. We have a Haitian GG, we already have a significant Haitian population, it seems reasonable that we could spend millions of $$ helping families (especially the orphaned) relocate and establish themselves in a new country.

I agree that we should help people all over the world whenever we can, but I also agree that we need to help ourselves at home first. How can we be so generous to strangers in another country but allow our government to neglect our own people. Canadians don't like 'homelessness' and yet more and more of the middle class are slipping slowly towards 'homelessness'.

Take our tax dollars and build a stronger foundation for our own people. Every person born in Canada should be entitled to the basic needs of human life - food, shelter and health care. Too many of our children are going to school hungry, cold and neglected - too many of our teenagers are angry and disillusioned - too many of our mothers and fathers spend sleepless nights trying to figure out how they will meet the expenses this month.

Come on Canadians - let's help others but let's be as proactive about helping each other.

In these economic hard times the money we pay to our government for services has to be spent efficiently - our children are our future.

These economic hard times

These economic hard times are artificially caused by our miseducated economists and politicians in the pockets of the corporate mafia, waiting for directorships.

Canada is counted as the wealthiest country on Earth even by the World Bank, and BC is probably the wealthiest in Canada, yet we have the lowest minimum and other wages, the highest child poverty, homelessness figures, rural areas are forcibly depopulated, schools are closing all over, etc. etc.

And all because of the fraudulent definitions of economic efficiency, GDP, growth and productivity.

Many of us can still remember when Canada, and our standards of living, have been growing all the time. We had no homeless, no foodbanks, but thousands of productive, small industries, all destroyed by the presently ruling economic theory of globalized colonization all over the world, enslaving people and ruining the environment.

Will people ever wake up and stop these crooks ?

Ed Deak.

Ed (Fiat Lux)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
"Nineteen Eighty-Four (also 1984), by George Orwell, published in 1949, is a dystopian novel about the totalitarian regime of the Party, an oligarchical collectivist society where life in the Oceanian province of Airstrip One is a world of perpetual war, pervasive government surveillance, public mind control, and the voiding of citizens' rights."

I was at a play last night (16/01), in which one line stood out for me:

"...the price of democracy is personal freedom..."

How true this apparent dichotomy has become!

"Will people ever wake up and stop these crooks?"

The key to disempowerment of our malevolent ruling class is the return of money creation to the public sector. This is the underlying mechanism by which common people are kept disenfranchised and are brought to heel. It is behind poverty and repression worldwide and only through a realization of the fraud perpetrated on the public by private bankers will the cycle of impoverishment and despair be broken. I know this appears peripheral to the topic but it really isn't once one begins to distill cause and effect to its elemental components. Perhaps an article on this subject could be undertaken by the Tyee. A public analysis of Paul Grignon's "Money as Debt" would make for a lively discussion I'm sure and would help spread an understanding and awareness of the deception behind private money creation.

RickW

Here's one for your cynical mind.

How will the Haiti earthquake affect national unity in Canada?

Bearing in mind that of the Haitian in Canada over 80% of the approximate 83,000 are in Montréal and the Canadian Government is just now making special arrangements to allow quick immigration for those that may wish to relocate to Canada. Take into account also that the Bloc Québecois and the Liberals will find it difficult to criticize the Conservatives over this and it will be appreciated by the Montráal Haitian community, perhaps by Quebecers in general. It may well give the Conservatives and federal Canada some good press in Québec. Will new arrivals be greeted at the Pierre Elliot Trudeau airport by Conservative Cabinet Ministers flanked by large Canadian flags? Will there be Québec flags too. Maybe some will arrive on Canadian Forces aircraft with a welcome ceremony on the tarmac. Will Blog and Liberal MPs be there too?

How will the Bloc mitigate the inevitable kudos that the federation will reap? If you believe in a united Canada this could be good.

Rebuilding the Ruins

"Rebuilding on the same site after a hurricane, tsunami, volcano, earthquake or other natural force has damaged an area is trying to change mother nature and we are not going to succeed no matter how much $$ is poured in to the affected area."

So when the Big One hits Vancouver where do we go?

Do we really believe we would suffer the same huge loss of life given our building codes and superior construction methods?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/13/haiti.construction/index.html

We could absolutely solve many of the world's problems with more money spent in the right places.

Haiti - We Would Rather Die Standing

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7903623001730810789&hl=en#

Haiti - We Would Rather Die Standing

Haitians are usually caste as lazy, indolent people in our media. I think they're some of the bravest people in the world! What the UN troops did to the inhabitants of Cité Soleil is appalling.

Zombie land

The way I cope is by constantly reminding myself that I was once (a little over 3 years ago) in zombie land too.

Decades of advanced psychological programming put me in a deep state of hypnosis. But everyone is on a different timeline pertaining to their awakening.

The elite who run Haiti run Canada. Jean Bertrand Aristide was kidnapped and exiled for refusing the very same privatization policies that Canadians are experiencing right across Canada from the very same elite. If they are not stopped, by enough people waking up, Haiti is our future. “What goes around comes around.” It may be our turn to get a real taste of what billions have been suffering from because of our apathy.

they're some of the bravest people

Our elitists’ media wants to portray them as machete welding savages who are lazy and unable to govern themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. Notice that they always portray them as pushing each other out of the way to get food. They’ll take one negative incident out of a 1,000 positive ones and show it to us over and over again. They mostly show the foreign rescue and relief workers but they don’t show the thousands of miraculous incidences of Haitians digging out their neighbours with their bear hands on empty stomachs. These are some of the most powerful and intelligent people on this planet. They put us to shame.

They put us to shame

Yes they do! To see the thousands of Cité Soleil residents protesting against their deplorable treatment and the resolute determination to not give up is inspiring. I wonder the reaction of a typical Canadian who finds themselves looking down the gun barrel of a UN soldier. Meek compliance I imagine. Sorry, sorry. Yes I'll move along. Sorry. Did I mention I was sorry?