The Politics of Exploitation: The Haiti Crisis Revisited

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

There is an interesting summary of Stephen Harper's response to the Haiti earthquake, in Lawrence Martin's book Harperland. He first describes how Harper was in trouble over the prorogation and how the resulting anger dominated the news.

The Haiti crisis then provided him an opportunity to change the channel and present himself as a take charge kind of guy.

A national day of protest as planned, belying the notion that Canadians were apathetic, that they didn't care about the functioning of their democracy. The momentum kept building, and then in an instant it was gone. A magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck near the capital of Haiti, sending tens of thousands to their deaths. It was one of the worst natural catastrophes in a century. Images from Port-au-Prince cast a pall over everything. Suddenly, arguments over the propriety of shutting down Parliament, or any other issue of public policy, seemed a trifling comparison.

The priority became a massive aid campaign, and the prime minister set about it in a blaze of activity. No one could accuse him of sitting idle now. Among the many fortunate breaks Harper had received in his career, the timing of this tragedy ranked high.

There was a month go before the Vancouver Olympics, and until the earthquake, he was destined to be on the defensive that entire month. The opposition parties had the wind in their sails, and the national protest day was promising to be a dramatic event. But Haiti totally consumed the airwaves for two weeks running, knocking prorogation and the planned protest to the back pages.

Harper hardly had the image of a great humanitarian or friend of & United Nations. But given the opportunity to change the political channel and lead a humanitarian effort, he did so with great aplomb, winning applause from all quarters. He dispatched the military in a timely fashion; made good use of his cabinet, most notably Peter MacKay and Lawrence Cannon; was more than generous with financial aid; played host to a quickly assembled international conference on the crisis, and shared the spotlight with a shaken Michaelle Jean, the Haitian-born governor general.

The epic catastrophe also allowed Harper to showcase the rebuilt armed forces. Canada's once sluggish and ill-equipped peacetime military was now well tuned and ready to respond to a crisis. When the 2004 tsunami struck, Canadian medics and engineers had to wait days to hitch a ride, as it was put, to get there. But this time, Canada's big new military aircraft were doing the job. (1)

Aside from the obvious, exploiting a crisis, there are many statements in the above that show either a deliberate attempt to gloss over the situation, or a misunderstanding based on the popular media reports of the day.

However, I suppose Martin is only tackling the story from the political perspective, and he's right. It was a gift. Just not for the victims of the quake, who received very little.

He Dispatched the Military in a Timely Fashion

Aside from my knee jerk reaction to the statement, "Among the many fortunate breaks Harper had received in his career, the timing of this tragedy ranked high", which was to resort to language I couldn't use here, let's break down this great humanitarian effort.

He did indeed show off our hardware and the planes took off with great thrust and enthusiasm. The people in Haiti needn't worry. Help was on it's way.

Harper's dispatch of troops matched a similar response from the United States. The military must first restore order we were told. But before saving lives?

It seems that the military was given landing preference over medical supplies and health personnel.

A Doctors Without Borders/Médecins SanscFrontières (MSF) cargo plane carrying 12 tons of medical equipment, including drugs, surgical supplies and two dialysis machines, was turned away three times from Port-au-Prince airport since Sunday night despite repeated assurances of its ability to land there. This 12-ton cargo was part of the contents of an earlier plane carrying a total of 40 tons of supplies that was blocked from landing on Sunday morning. Since January 14, MSF has had five planes diverted from the original destination of Port-au-Prince to the Dominican Republic. These planes carried a total of 85 tons of medical and relief supplies. (2)

And the Navy ships that Harper dispatched with "great aplomb"? According to the Chronicle Herald:

OTTAWA — When HMCS Athabaskan and HMCS Halifax were ordered to sail on a humanitarian mission to Haiti on Jan. 13, they worked through the night, passing boxes hand to hand, loading stores aboard the ships — everything they would need for the humanitarian mission. But sailors didn’t take aboard much in the way of relief aid — food packages, medical supplies or shelters — for distribution to Haitians.

In the House of Commons on Thursday, during his response to the speech from the throne, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said otherwise. "Ships of the Atlantic fleet were immediately ordered to Haiti from Halifax, loaded with relief supplies," he said as he recapped the government’s efforts to help Haiti recover from the earthquake.

... During the voyage, some sailors wondered if the ships might have been better off staying in port a little longer — say 12 hours — to take on more relief supplies, food aid and medical equipment before sailing for Haiti. (3)

They could have used a little less "aplomb" and a few more necessities. And they could have done it with just 12 more hours.

And we also learn that 10 months after the crisis, only 35% of the promised money (matching Canadian citizen's donations) has been delivered by our government.

The Canadian International Development Agency says only $65.15 million has been paid out so far. The $65 million that has been delivered has been to large agencies only, among them ones identified by many observers as the least able to deliver timely aid directly to victims. (4)

1.3 million Haitians are still living in tent cities and a cholera epidemic is threatening more lives.

So pardon me if I don't get all warm and fuzzy over our country's response to this crisis. These people have been exploited for years, which is why they were so poor in the first place. And sadly, our prime minister saw an opportunity to exploit them some more for his own political career.

And he wonders why we lost the UN Security bid.

This is who we are now, and life in Harperland is just peachy keen.

Continuation:

The Haiti Crisis Revisited: Canada's Military Response

Sources:

1. Harperland:The Politics of Control, By Lawrence Martin, Viking Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-670-06517-2, Pg. 241-242

2. Doctors Without Borders Plane with Lifesaving Medical Supplies Diverted Again from Landing in Haiti Patients in Dire Need of Emergency Care Dying from Delays in Arrival of Medical Supplies, January 19, 2010

3. The Halifax Chronicle Herald, March 12, 2010

4. Aid doesn't help Haiti much if it never gets there, By pogge, Peace, Order and Good Government, November 5, 2010

Chapter Forty Continued: John Diefenbaker and the National Energy Board

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

As the Conservatives' foreign affairs critic, Diefenbaker began warning about the danger of American money flowing into Canada to dominate Canadian industry. Then in May of 1956, he had his chance to pick an issue that could define his political direction.

Prime Minister St. Laurent and his Liberals introduced legislation to have the Canadian government lend $80 million to the U.S.-controlled Trans-Canada Pipe Lines Ltd., to build a pipeline from Alberta to Winnipeg in order to export natural gas to the United States.

The loan was the key to a deal with high-flying Texas tycoons who for half a dozen years had been wheeling and dealing with the so-called "minister of everything," C.D. Howe, minister of defence production, minister of trade and commerce, and all-powerful in the St. Laurent government. The autocratic Howe demanded that the loan go through quickly so the pipeline could be finished before the next federal election, and he induced the government to impose closure to limit debate on the measure ... Diefenbaker, and other Tories seized on the arrogance of Howe and the Liberals to begin the most raucous episode in the House of Commons in this century, the infamous "Pipeline Debate." (1)

Dief was in high form:

John Diefenbaker shouted about the Liberals' "brutalitarian tactics" and "executive absolutism," but he had equally poisonous contempt for the buccaneering Texas tycoons – "those Texas millionaires; those pampered pets" – especially Clint Murchison, C.D. Howe's friend and the central Trans-Canada Pipe Lines financier, whom Diefenbaker called a "pirate" who was "financin' by finaglin'." He accused the government of "playing around with . . . these adventurers from Texas and New York, trading away Canada's national resources at the expense of the Canadian people." The deal, Diefenbaker said, would make Canada "a virtual economic forty-ninth state." (1)

The Liberals had a strong majority and the legislation was passed, but it would come back to bite them on the butt.

That August, then Tory leader George Drew fell ill and John Diefenbaker would win the leadership. And though considered a long shot, he built his campaign on the "Pipe-line debates"

With eyes flaming, arms flailing and shoulders and jowls aquiver, Diefenbaker travelled the nation, fervently drying out for "One Canada!" and exultantly proclaiming, "I have come here with a vision of our nation's destiny." It was a "Canada first" vision expounded with visceral nationalism. "I have but one love, Canada. One purpose, its "greatness," he would say. Canadians hadn't heard such a magnificent spellbinder since the heyday of Sir John A. Macdonald.

And he did what many people thought impossible, becoming prime minister in 1957. Soon after the election he commissioned Henry Borden, to help to establish an energy board, primarily to help the Alberta independent oil producers to find a market for their crude oil by building a pipeline from Edmonton to Montreal. Their opponents, the large, international oil companies, found it more profitable to use imported oil in their Montreal refineries.

The most influential individual at the hearings was Walter J. Levy, a New York oil consultant, who proposed that the pipeline not be built and that Alberta oil be exported to the US while Montreal continued to be supplied from abroad. In its reports the commission accepted this recommendation, and called it the National Oil Policy. (2)

Not everyone was happy with the arrangement.

The aim of the National Oil Policy was to promote the Alberta oil industry by securing for it a protected share of the domestic market. Under the policy, Canada was divided into two oil markets. The market east of the Ottawa Valley (the Borden Line) would use imported oil, while west of the Borden Line, consumers would use the more expensive Alberta supplies. For most of the 1961-73 period, consumers to the West paid between $1.00 and $1.50 per barrel above the world price, which, just before the 1973 OPEC oil embargo and price increase, stood at around $3.00. They also paid proportionately higher prices at the pump than Canadians east of the Borden line. (3)

This meant that Ontario paid the higher Alberta price and were restricted from shopping for a better deal, while foreign owned companies in Montreal, got to import cheaper product.

So while those who ascribe to old 'Western alienation theories', for 12 years Ontario paid 33-50% more for oil and gas, to ensure that Alberta had a ready market. And this decision was made by an oilman from New York. For our part, it enabled Canada to avoid the Mandatory Oil Import Quota Program, introduced by Eisenhower in 1959.

So Alberta oil also went to the U.S., and the Americans were able to buy Alberta oil cheaper than we could in Ontario.

When JFK came to power, the relationship with the United States deteriorated greatly, since he and Diefenbaker genuinely disliked each other. There was one small deal that Dief did secure "by finaglin'". The U.S. then had a trade embargo against Communist China, where Canada had been shipping wheat. Because Imperial Oil was a subsidy of an American company, they were not allowed, under U.S. trade law, to fuel the tankers delivering the wheat. Kennedy gave him this concession (5), but after that it was war.

Sources:

1. Kennedy & Diefenbaker:The Feud That Helped Topple a Government, By Knowlton Nash, McClelland & Stewart, 1991, ISBN: 0-7710-6711-9, Pg. 35-36

2. Royal Commission on Energy, By Ed Shaffer, The Canadian Encyclopedia

3. Towards a Just Society: The Trudeau Years, By Thomas S. Axworthy and Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Viking Press, 1990, ISBN: 0-670-83015-1. Pg. 51

4. Canadian foreign policy: defining the national interest, By Steven Kendall Holloway, UTP Higher Education, 2006, ISBN-13: 978-1551118161, Pg. 158

5. Nash, 1991, Pg. 92