Watching Bill Graham, the federal minister of Defense squirm on CBC’s The National tonight was, er, interesting.
Brian Stewart is subbing at the anchor desk and his beat is politics. Usually his questions are way too long and he talks over people. But tonight, he put a couple of hard questions to Graham and sat back and let him kind of hang himself.
The only word that came to mind was…lame. Graham was attempting to defend and explain what to Canadians is indefensible. He gets paid big bucks in his portfolio. Hey I know parliament is in recess, and I think the PM et al deserve and need vacations. Running a minority government is tough work.
But leaving the minister of Defense to explain why Ottawa has been almost non-responsive to the Southeast Asian earthquake, is…lame. There is no defense or justification or model or reasoning for how the Canadian government has conducted itself the past few days. The emperor is limping again. I almost felt sorry for Mr. Graham having to face the music. The operative word is almost. I couldn’t quite work up the sympathy.
Graham touted the X10 increase in emergency funding the government coughed up today. He defended the one planeload of supplies that have been sent, and the other one they decided to send today. He applauded the hard working senior bureaucrats that have been on the job since December 26th.
Crow about the Canadian consulates to your hearts content since that is your job Mr. Minister. But some are not doing a very good job, okay?
The coup de grāce was Graham’s attempt to contrast torpidity - with the Swiss medical team waiting for Thailand officals.
Man. It was lame.
Mr. Graham made the obligatory appearance on CTV later in the evening, doing the media rounds that go with the job.
He was a more subdued and tired defense minister by then. He is a crafty enough politican to know on some level, he blew it and Ottawa has blown it and we know he blew it and Ottawa has blown it.
The Canadian Red Cross has had to call in extra volunteers across the country to help with donations the past couple of days. The Canadian World Vision director who is currently in India, made a brief appearance in a clip to say the Canadian office received more donations today than they have ever seen.
You see Mr. Minister, you can justify, explain, defend, laud and applaud your/our government in Ottawa all you want. You can huff and puff and sound important. It’s talk. Canadians are busy doing the walk. Millions of people are not going to wait for you, your political collegues and fellow cabinet ministers to get the act together. Millions of people in Asia can’t.
A 7 year old girl from BC sat down with a national reporter and explained why she had decided not to get a puppy with her chore money. She saw the pictures on TV and knew people had been swept out to sea. She knew kids needed fresh water and food. And she decided her chore money would help those kids.
Sir, you could take some honesty and humilty lessons from that child.
And I could take a lesson from Messy Christian. She has set up a ‘virtual prayer room’ on her blog. Don’t know what to pray? Don’t know how to respond?
That’s okay, this is a good place to start.
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It’s no wonder Newfoundland has been taking the Canadian flag down in protest (although the matter is not related). Our government on provincial and federal levels no longer works for the people. It’s bulky and has risen to the height of it’s incompetence. Meanwhile, the grass roots organizations that exist in Canada (international and national) have done considerably more, considerably faster for the tsunami victims.
When are Canadian going to learn that our government doesn’t have the answers, equipment, or ability to serve our needs efficiently let alone respond quickly internationally? It’s no wonder that thousands of Canadians have simply by-passed the government donation route and gone to the Red Cross and other aid agencies.
http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2004/12/28/top_story/doc41d1e5420ec23171172730.txt
a link that a friend of mine sent me.
I have been overwhelmed by the news from the tsunami/earthquake disaster.
It will be years, if ever, before the region is rebuilt. I can remember that 3 years after the Northridge quake (194) there were still areas of unrepaired damage - and that was in the wealthy and well-insured Los Angeles region of the USA.
EWTN has been offering prayer for the victims and survivors every day on their televised Masses. Big and little blogs have put comments, links to relief organizations, prayer requests, up. We can and must pray, but that prayer needs to be translated into action as well. Bless you for what you have been able to do.
_Obviously, you don’t understand the BIG picture. All of our federal politicians have been doing an exemplary job in defining the situation and ????
_Am I the only one who thought it was the appointed Deputy Prime Minister’s (Anne McLellan) responsibility to speak publicly for the Cdn government during the P.M.’s absence?