‘Villages have disappeared’

“ The world understands that Canada and Canadians are committed to doing whatever we can today and in the weeks ahead to help relieve the suffering and the grief of all of those that are affected by this tragedy,” Mr. Martin said before meeting with representatives of Toronto’s Pakistani community at an airport hotel yesterday.

Also included in the $20-million package are two Canadian Forces helicopters that will be used to move people and supplies through Pakistan’s mountainous region in the north; and plans by Immigration Minister Joe Volpe to fast-track family unification requests for Canadian citizens with family in the area hit by the earthquake.

Ottawa matched public donations last Christmas when a tsunami struck off the coast of Indonesia killing tens of thousands, and the government has been under pressure from prominent members of the Pakistani community since Saturday to increase the financial aid package to $40-million — a financial response commensurate with what the government pledged after the Dec. 26 tsunami.

The matching funds program for Pakistan will come out of the $20-million pot, but Mr. Martin said more money will be made available if it is required.

“ Destruction of this magnitude will take years to deal with,” said Asaf Shujah, president of Toronto’s Pakistan-Canadian Cultural Association, which he said represents about 200,000 Pakistanis living in Canada’s largest city. “Villages have completely disappeared. It’s like they never existed.”

Mr. Martin, Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew, CIDA Minister Aileen Carroll and halfadozen other Liberal MPs met with about 20 Pakistani- Canadian representatives, as well as the country’s Consul- General to Canada.

“If you had sat down with the government two years ago and said we're going to have a series of natural disasters of the kind that we have seen, I don’t think that anybody would have really shared that view,” Mr. Martin said of a list of tragedies that now includes hurricanes Katrina and Rita and a Boxing Day 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran.

On Monday, the federal government increased Canada’s aid contribution from $300,000 to $20-million.

The bulk of that cash is being used to transport winterized blankets by CC- 130 Hercules aircraft to the affected region in northern Pakistan at the request of the Pakistani government.