Feds say lack of airstrips, infrastructure has hampered hurricane rescue efforts
OTTAWA — Federal ministers expressed sympathy Monday for the hundreds of Canadians affected by Hurricane Irma as well as their worried families back home, even as they sought to explain why more wasn’t done earlier to help them.
The government expected most Canadians needing assistance in the Caribbean to have been extricated by commercial flights by the end of the day, including 90 from Turks and Caicos and 150 from St. Maarten.
Some humanitarian assistance was also being readied or already on the way to the region, with the expectation that much more would follow in the coming days, weeks and even months.
A special team from Global Affairs Canada and the Department of National Defence is in Antigua to determine what help is needed after the region endured the one-two punch of hurricanes Irma and José.
But Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said the top priority was helping those Canadians affected by the hurricanes, which together caused destruction across the Caribbean.
“We are working very, very hard to bring you home,” Freeland told a briefing via conference call from Toronto, where she met returning Canadians at the airport later in the day.
“We are very aware of how frightening, how worrying this situation is, and I am not going to rest until everybody is back and safe.”
Officials said they had received requests for assistance from 368 Canadians, but acknowledged there might have been others who hadn’t been able to get in contact with Global Affairs.
Air Canada and WestJet flights were scheduled to arrive Monday.
The government’s move to action Monday followed a storm of criticism over the weekend from family and friends of those trapped by the hurricanes, who questioned why more wasn’t done sooner.
Many noted that the U.S. and several other countries had deployed their militaries to remove their citizens and wondered why Canada hadn’t done the same and was instead relying on commercial airlines.
One of the Canadian Armed Forces’ massive C-17 transport planes is scheduled to ferry humanitarian supplies to the region this week and will be available to evacuate any stragglers.
But Conservative foreign affairs critic Erin O’Toole called on the government to send various military aircraft immediately to countries where commercial airlines were having difficulty operating.
Government ministers said there was no shortage of aircraft thanks to the commercial airlines; the problem, they maintained, was with having enough space to land the planes.
“From the beginning, the airlines have been available,” Transport Minister Marc Garneau said at Global Affairs headquarters in Ottawa.
“The main problem has been the availability of the airstrips on which to land and in some cases permission to leave with passengers. So I can understand people saying: ‘Hey, where are the airplanes?’ ”
Global Affairs said its emergency centre had processed 2,140 calls and emails as of Monday morning.