Dear Editor,
In the last week or so, an absolutely devastating earthquake shook the small nation of Nepal to its very core, leveling huge swaths of this beautiful country and causing thousands of deaths.
The endless pictures of tiny children being carried out of the horrendous rubble, families lost, and entire villages flattened makes me wonder why Canada is so slow to deploy its DART team.
This is a team that has been assembled, at great cost to the Canadian taxpayer, to be deployed at a moment’s notice to any place on Earth after a catastrophic event, as was experienced in Nepal days ago.
But, unlike the Chinese, the Americans and the French, who didn’t ask questions but just rolled up their sleeve and sent plane loads of food and shelters and generators and people to help, we have sent over an “assessment team” to consider whether this merits us to deploy DART.
My question, what makes us so special that we cannot jump in, feet first, and just help a country that has been shattered? Why do we feel that a country like Nepal has to merit our DART team through assessment? Get their butts and gear on a plane and get them over there to help. Why do we always show up last?
I hope, when our much threatened earthquake comes, we are not waiting for other countries to assess before sending help. I for one would be looking for all the help I could get, just like a tiny nation in Asia is doing right now, and there is not a Maple Leaf to be seen. Shameful!
R. Lamb
Richmond
(On May 2, a week after the earthquake on April 25, Canada annouced it would deploy DART.)
