U.S. urges Canada to stay the course in Haiti

UN saddened by Fantino’s remarks on aid

OTTAWA — The U.S. State Department and the United Nations chided International Cooperation Minister Julian Fantino Wednesday over his controversial remarks about retooling aid to impoverished Haiti.

Fantino told a Montreal newspaper last week he wanted to freeze aid to Haiti, only to have his department, the Canadian International Development Agency, backtrack to explain it was conducting a thorough review of Canada’s $1-billion contribution to the Caribbean country.

One of the U.S. State Department’s top Haiti officials said it sees Canada as a valued partner in the country and doesn’t want it to change any of its programs.

“Haiti is not going to become a middle-income country overnight,” Eileen Wickstrom Smith, a senior official in the State Department’s Haiti office, said Wednesday.

“We continue our strong partnership with the government of Haiti and the people of Haiti, and we would like to see the Canadian government continue its programs. We think they’ve been an important contributor, and we would like them to stay that way.”

A senior Haiti official from the UN Development Program said there’s more going on in Haiti than Fantino may have seen on his recent first trip to the country.

“We are saddened … they are reviewing their support,” said Jessica Faieta, a deputy director for the UNDP’s Latin American bureau.

“I think for anyone who comes to Haiti for the first time, you normally are actually shocked by the level of challenges that the country has.

“But we also need to look deep into the context of where the country is coming from.”

Fantino, who remarked on the garbage he saw strewn about, said he was disappointed by the lack of progress and wanted to find a better way to help Haiti’s reconstruction to ensure Canadian taxpayers’ money was well spent.

His remarks last week came just before the third anniversary of the devastating earthquake in Haiti that killed an estimated 300,000 people and left swaths of the country in ruins.

Smith and Faieta said Canada has already been a major player in achieving progress in Haiti.