From a Canadian newspaper:
<Table><SPAN class=headline>Canada should be proud of our tsunami aid</SPAN> <SPAN
class=subhead></SPAN>
<SPAN class=byline>
Rob
Fursiewicz</SPAN>
<SPAN class=regular>“We’ve done much to be
proud of in tsunami relief,” wrote Lorne Gunter in last Monday’s National Post,
“but we could have done so much more.”
Canada has given enormous amounts
of money and deployed DART. What more could we have done, given our financial
resources?
Our government was even matching citizen contributions (until
11 January), which is odd given that those were our tax dollars in the first
place. It’s akin to a buy-one-get-one-free sale where the “free” item has been
taken from your home and given back to you; if we wanted to give twice as much,
we’d do it ourselves.
Either way, most are proud of Canada’s world-class
contribution. Yet there are always those Canadians who will step in to defend
the US whenever Canada just might have a rare advantage over our great southern
neighbours.
Someone on Gunter’s cable box had the nerve to state that
Canada’s relief contributions were larger than the US’s—surely that couldn’t be
true.
“It’s not true,” he writes. US financial aid, “plus the cost of
the aircraft carrier, relief ships, transport planes [and] squadrons of
helicopters” means “the Americans’ contribution is unsurpassed in the world.”
That’s fantastic, but Gunter forgets that Canada has no military,
one-tenth the population of the United States, and one-eleventh of its GDP.
Given this, and ignoring the military aid for a minute, it seems to me
that the US should be giving ten times Canada’s financial contribution. The US
certainly hasn’t responded weakly. It’s just that Canada has pledged such a
monumental amount of cash that it wouldn’t be right to judge America’s
contribution against our.
Comparing monetary contributions is unfair—and
the comparison pundits like Gunter invoke of military-based aid efforts. If
you’re going to factor in military contributions, the United States will
obviously dominate. America’s military spending ($420.7 billion per year) is
greater than the next 23 nations combined.
What would be the reaction if
the United States, global leaders in terms of war and military intervention,
neglected to use their military implements to help do some good in
tsunami-ravaged areas? This is where Gunter’s points are laughable: the United
States should not be commended for their military-based contributions. It should
be expected, and it’s the least they can do considering their military spending
and global presence.
One thing this tsunami disaster has done is allow
Bush and his government to show that, when push comes to shove, they will do
what is necessary. While right-wingers whine about Paul Martin vacationing or
taking too long to fire up contribution levels, leftists whine that Bush isn’t
giving enough. Both sides should quit whining.
Realistically, comparing
aid is an academic exercise within the big picture. The whole world has
contributed, and will continue to do so, at least for as long as the tsunami
media coverage continues bringing waves of ratings successes.
For now,
the world can be proud of its response. The media has won because, while doing
its duty in covering a historic disaster and helping induce donations, ratings
and readership levels are up as people strive to learn more. Bush and his
government win because not only has a greater disaster taken the world’s eyes
off the great disaster of Iraq, but they’ve had the opportunity to showcase
their long-lost “compassionate conservatism.” And now, a tsunami warning system
is about to come into effect, providing hope for the future.
Even
anti-Liberal pundits have had a chance to advance their cause for more Canadian
military spending, tying it to how much more we could’ve given if we had more
aircraft carriers, ships, planes, helicopters and soldiers.
If the
biggest problem in all the aftermath and political fist-throwing is that “Canada
has become ... a cheque-writer in international affairs, not a sleeve-roller,”
as Gunter writes, then all is well. We have the capability and the compassion to
write such cheques—huge ones at that—and whining about what we didn’t do with
the additional resources we don’t have won’t save any lives. After all, pundits
talk, but so does money, and which would a victim of the tsunami prefer right
now?
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