Politics and what is right

COMMENT

When

the earth moves and

thousands die, there’s no formula guiding Canada’s ride to the rescue.

The speed and size of our relief response is very much open to negotiation, interpretation and political manipulation, the latest prime example being Canada’s aid package for the victims of the earthquake in Pakistan.

The opening offer of $300,000 and several planeloads of blankets was greeted with hoots of derision when Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew did a photo-op walkabout of the PakistaniCanadian community in Montreal on Sunday.

A hasty warning about the backlash was sent to the Prime Minister’s office, an overnight assessment was completed by the International Red Cross, and the figure of $20-million in disaster assistance appeared on a news release — even before the death count from the 7.6-magnitude earthquake had finished climbing to 40,000.

This is why Canada needs a misery index, some guideline linking a region’s ability to cope with a calamity to a fair share of Canadian assistance. Nothing like this exists now.

A cynic might suggest the emergency gathering of three Cabinet ministers with Pakistani community leaders on Thanksgiving Monday, followed by Prime Minister Paul Martin’s schedule-juggling, I-feel-yourpain visit yesterday, was a show of Liberal empathy motivated by political considerations. OK, fine. Call me cynical.

Pakistan consistently finishes in the top five of source countries for immigration to Canada, and, let’s be honest here, ethnic communities tend to vote as a block and mostly Liberal. They are an important political demographic. If they’re very unhappy six months before the next election, Liberals get very worried and anxious to please. Naturally, government officials recoil and gasp at the audacity of anyone suggesting there are political motives in deciding the scale of any relief package.

But review the humanitarian assistance news releases of the past five years and I challenge anyone to find a connection between the monetary value of the package and the misery of the people.

When 26,000 died in Iran almost two years ago, Canada sent $1.5-million. That works out to $57 per victim.

When 1,200 died in flooding in Bangladesh, we sent $700,000. Or $583 per victim.

Algeria lost 2,300 in the May 2003 earthquake, and Canada donated $200,000. This math is getting morbid.

An earthquake hit El Salvador in early 2001, killing 852 people while the Cabinet minister in charge of emergency relief was touring the region. She coughed up $3.3-million.

Arguably the most crassly motivated foreign aid announcement of modern times was last year’s $90-million boost to help Sudan. The fact 50,000 people in the Darfur region had died from civil war and starvation may have had something to do with it, but the prime ministerial motivation appeared to be Independent MP David Kilgour’s demand for greater aid to the region as his price for supporting a government teetering on the edge of defeat.

Which brings us to the Pakistani quake. In preparing its response, high on the federal mind was avoiding another political disaster coming from a natural disaster. In the days after the Asian tsunami hit last Boxing Day, key ministers were on vacation, lines of communication were crossed, and there was a prolonged scramble to match the government’s response to the generosity of Canadians, which eventually worked out to $ 425- million for a catastrophe that claimed 300,000 lives.

And so, it is with some relief, we must acknowledge that Canada has done well so far on the Pakistani earthquake file.

The Red Cross in Ottawa gave it the thumbs-up, and officials were quick to produce charts showing Canada’s donation was the highest of the G7 countries at 52¢ per person. The United States gave 17 ¢ per American, while the U. K. gave a stingy 3 ¢ per Brit.

We should also note the increased relief response kept pace with steadily worsening developments on the shattered ground of the region.

When The Associated Press alerted the world an earthquake had struck the region, it reported only a dozen injuries and four shops being damaged. It took six hours before the newswire was confirming 500 deaths and another three hours to triple the body count before it tripled again — around the same time Canada announced its $300,000 package on Saturday afternoon.

The full magnitude of the disaster only sank in 20 hours after the first alert when the death toll was raised to 18,000, boosted early Sunday to 30,000 victims and 2.5 million homeless. That’s when Canada stepped up with its enhanced, $20-million package.

So the right thing was done and perhaps in the right amount. What remains missing is some way to ensure Canada’s future reaction to natural disasters is a humanitarian response, not political damage control.