This column in the National Post takes the federal government and Canadians to task regarding the massive humanitarian disaster in Southeast Asia.

I didn’t see Prime Minister Paul Martin’s response when he meandered back from his holiday in Morrocco. I did see the photo op at the Markham school.
To be frank, I wasn’t paying much attention. I’d already watched Bill Graham, Minister of Defense, I’d heard that three cabinet ministers were heading over to Southeast Asia, and all I could think was bad idea. The last thing needed is people being pulled from the field to walk politicans around.

‘To those countries and their citizens who are so much the subject of our prayers and our concern, we say simply that in Canada, you have the most caring of friends and strongest of allies.” This was Prime Minister Paul Martin on Sunday, announcing that his government’s contribution to tsunami disaster relief would be hiked to $80-million. He continued: “We will be there to comfort, to assist, to help in any way we can. Not simply for a week or a month or even a year, but for as long as it takes and for as long as you need us, because that is the Canadian way.”

Er. Well. Yes and no. Canadians didn’t wait for Ottawa.
“the Canadian way” is a myth, built on some reality, and squandered over time.

Another reason I wasn’t paying attention is because Ottawa is about going out of it’s way to defend itself against what most of us understand as indefensible.

It turns out helicopters — helicopters that can actually fly — are useful things in a disaster. Even Bangladesh has sent helicopters and, of all things, two C-130 transports. Military aircraft are a shameful extravagance for such a poor country. But for a country like Canada that aspires to be a player in the world, the soft power of good intentions and eloquent resolutions is not enough. The hard power of helicopters is what people really need.

I wonder if past recipients of our aid would testify we have been there for “as long as it takes.” They would be wise not to count on us “simply for a week.” It takes us a week to get there.

Another reason I wasn’t paying attention was because of the searches to this blog. While the federal government dithered I was looking at the searches coming to this tiny place online. Thousands and thousands of people all over the world were looking for relatives and friends. Some of the searches came from places I don’t know, in languages I can’t identify. Some of the searches were english as a second language. For far too many the common denominator was loss.

As Canadians let’s not do what our federal government is doing, okay? Breaking our arms patting ourselves on the back is not going to get a very serious and long term task accomplished. Ask the Canadian workers in Haiti.
They have been waiting months for simple building supplies. They are there and they are doing the best they can with what they have, but what they need hasn’t arrived.

Does anybody read this stuff before the PM speaks it? “To those countries and their citizens who are so much the subject of our prayers and our concern, we say simply that in Canada, you have the most caring of friends and strongest of allies.” Are we more caring than the Swedes or Italians or Australians or the dozens of other peoples who have dug deep as we have and have actually managed to show up? Are we stronger allies than the Americans, who have 12,500 military personnel in the region, an aircraft carrier, field hospitals and helicopters?

The responsibility is on all of us who vote. It is critically important as recovery efforts move into rebuilding to face the sober reality it is going to take time to help millions of people move past aid dependency into self-sufficiency again. An earthquake and waves took 10 minutes to wipe out what could take up to 10 years to rebuild.

Unless governments have assets, such as aircraft carriers and helicopters, which private aid agencies don’t, I don’t actually see why they need to be involved in relief at all. The usual rationale is the free-rider problem. Help for the victims relieves us all of worry and concern but it’s even better for me if you pay for it, so I may simply free-ride and let you do all the giving. Thus, government has to pick up the slack because in fact many of us aren’t as caring as we claim.

Mr. Martin’s pledge to match whatever Canadians give on their own suggests he believes roughly half of us will act like churls. My own bet is that in one of history’s worst disasters most Canadians won’t free-ride. Instead of all the slaver about the Canadian way, a better message from Ottawa would be “Give or be ashamed of yourself.”