With no particular direction to go

Another disaster and yet more questions for Canada's disaster response officials. The weekend earthquakes of Pakistan and India have reportedly claimed over 35,000 lives, left countless hundreds of thousands homeless and changed entire villages forever.

At 7.6 on the scale, this one has been classified as a major event, some thirty aftershocks have rattled the area since the main event of Saturday, reliving the fear for those that survived. A widespread call for assistance has been issued by the Pakistani President and many countries have stepped up to offer aid. And so far Canada has made a lot of noise but little tangible effort. In a replay of the Southeast Asian Tsunami of Boxing Day, another disaster hit on a Canadian Long weekend and that only seems to spell trouble for any kind of comprehensive response by Canada. It seems that everyone is out of the office and no one has the phone numbers to stir the nation to action.

Originally 300,000 dollars was suggested as a sufficient amount to drop in the donation box. Quickly upped to 20 million dollars when the optics became a bit poor on the initial amount. Now 20 million is nothing to sneeze at, it's a generous display of concern even if it appears to have been picked out of thin air in a moment of political panic. Perhaps some officials reminded the government that there were votes to be lost in the homes of Canadians affected by the disasters in their home countries. In fact the Prime Minister is to meet with the Pakistani community in Ontario today to explain what Canada is going to do and express his condolences. Good for him for making that gesture, though I always look for ulterior motives with politicians these days, my cynicism cup runneth over I'm afraid.

While the financial aid will no doubt be welcome and is the least we can do, the real question remains why we never seem to provide boots on the ground as they say. Now keeping in mind that our military forces are rather thin at the moment with other ventures including a rather concentrated effort in Afghanistan, but one must wonder why our much vaunted DART unit never seems to leave home. This dedicated unit to disaster relief would seem tailor made to be sent to areas such as the recent flooding of New Orleans and Mississippi or now this latest disaster, but again the containers stay packed and locked in a compound at some Canadian Armed Forces base.

It seems that we have a transportation problem with our Armed Forces, we don't have the necessary lift potential to take our good intentions to where they need to be placed. We also are rather short staffed when it comes to the actual personnel to go to disaster zones and lend a hand. Consecutive decades of neglect has left our Armed Forces stripped of its ability to respond, this is no criticism of those that serve valiantly, no doubt frustrated at the expectation that the job will get done without the proper backing.

Time and time again our political leaders will trot out the old chestnut that Canada stands ready to take its place in the world, to step up and help when the call comes. Then when we receive the call suddenly the cupboards are bare, the gas tanks empty or the mission not practical. Eventually someone is going to ask just what exactly is an emergency that the DART unit could be used for and what it might take to send it someplace useful in a timely manner.

I'm reminded here of our recent efforts in the Hurricane ravaged Gulf coast, we took longer to get to the disaster zone in travel time than we actually spent doing good deeds. When we arrived there was not much in the way of work for our troops to do. So it was back on the ships and heading north for home as another Hurricane was heading for Texas. Fortunately the damage to Texas wasn't as terrible as expected, yet it could have been much worse. Why our ships weren't placed on station in the Gulf ready to head for stricken ares after the first hurricane is beyond me, there did seem to be enough warning there. Once on station in the Gulf, we could then have gone on to Texas for the next one, we were down there anyways, but instead we were steaming back home. Again this is not to criticize the folks doing the heavy lifting in our Armed Forces they truly want to help, but it seems there is a dis-connect from the will of the troops and the planning and financial contribution of the politicians.

International Co-operation minister Aileen Caroll, was quick to head for the microphones stating that Canada's financial contribution puts us in the lead of the G8 on a per capita basis (a quaint term of bafflegab, that makes us look good cause you know were not the big kid on the block). But she said there were no immediate plans to send DART to Pakistan, however we may send Bill Graham there to take a look for us. I'm sure the folks digging through the rubble are just waiting for Canadian politicians to show up on the scene. Hope he brings a shovel!

Far too often Canada seems to be playing catch up on these things, we tend to scramble to react, rather than take effective and decisive action when its required. The press releases are flying from Ottawa, once again we're leading the world in patting ourselves on the back, while at the same time not exactly breaking our backs with anything resembling tangible labour.