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Canadian government - management of Lebanon evacuation

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Canadian government - management of Lebanon evacuation

Postby Kathy » 7/20/2006, 8:17 am

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... ional/home

I don't even know which paragraphs to quote here since all of them reflect such poor management and decision-making.


We have the most or second-most citizens (some tourists, some dual citizens) in Lebanon, and we have the worst evacuation... late in planning, poor in execution. It's really quite sad and embarrassing.

Excerpts from the article:

"Micromanagement by the Prime Minister's Office and a lack of resources in Lebanon contributed to the confusion and anguish at Beirut's port Wednesday as Canadians trying to flee Israeli bombardments watched boats chartered by other nations sail away, leaving them behind."
...

“Well, it's fair to say that some Canadians arrived on Sunday, but only just,” said one diplomat involved in the operation. It was hard to find staff, since huge numbers of Foreign Affairs and embassy staff were on vacation, and many of the embassies were unable to spare workers. Of the approximately 36 people now working in Cyprus, the majority arrived Tuesday or yesterday."
...

"I haven't heard anything from the Canadians — they haven't even told us they're here,” Homer Mavrommatis, head of the Consular Affairs division for the Cypriot government, said Wednesday."
...

"All decisions had to be made and approved by Ottawa. And, with six time zones between the locations, decisions were often painfully slow.
While other countries were already marshalling large cruise ships on Sunday, Canada spent two days in long-distance discussions before any calls were made. “It was only 24 to 36 hours ago that we first got in contact with the owners of the ships,” one senior official in Cyprus said Wednesday. "
...

"On Tuesday night, they realized that the promise they'd made earlier — that there would be seven boats each transporting two loads of Canadians per day starting Wednesday — could never be met. There wouldn't be seven boats, and it appeared unlikely that even one of them would be able to make it across the Mediterranean by the end of last night.

But even as late as Wednesday morning, Canadian officials in Beirut were confidently telling reporters that all seven ships were on their way, and that they expected to get 2,000 people out of the country by sundown. Thursday, they had hoped to be moving something close to double that number."

"... on Tuesday, Ottawa abruptly switched the target of the evacuation from Cyprus to Turkey, where there are both hotel spaces and the facilities to quickly airlift evacuees to Canada using military or commercial planes.
Still, that switch took Canadian officials in Cyprus by surprise. Wednesday morning they prepared to move the Nicosia operation to Turkey."
...

"Suddenly, last night, they were told the Prime Minister would be visiting and that Canadians — any Canadians — would have to be brought to the port of Larnaca, Cyprus. They made an urgent request to the British government, which had been taking Britons on large naval vessels with military escorts to the western city of Limassol, to allow 120 Canadians to board one of the ships so that there would be some available to greet the Prime Minister and ride home on his Airbus jet."
...

"First, it turned out that 120 Canadians had not boarded the British vessel — at most, perhaps 20 were on board. The officials then scrambled to see whether the single Canadian-rented vessel that had reached Beirut, the Lebanese-licensed Blue Dawn, could sail more quickly to Larnaca to meet the Prime Minister.
>>Kathy's interpretation: "hurry, we set up a photo op, you have to get people here asap!"

"It quickly became apparent this wasn't going to happen. While Israel had guaranteed Canadians passage, the captain wasn't ready to move without military escort — and Canada couldn't deliver that. Hours passed. The sun set. And it wasn't until 11 p.m. in Beirut that the ship finally left the dock with 261 Canadians aboard."
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Postby goleafsgo » 7/20/2006, 9:35 pm

No way. People should stop bitching about the 'mis-management'. First of all, I'm not a supporter of the Conservatives. I did not vote for them, nor will I anytime in the near future. Canada is half-way around the world from this conflict, it is impossible for us to compare efficiencies with France or other European countries... logistically they win. Secondly, the American were able to send a Naval vessel to pick up its citizens because they can. Canada does NOT have such capabilities. If we did, people would have bitched about the over-spending on military. Third, 40,000 people! That's the size of a small city. Uh, that's A LOT of plane and boat trips...
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Postby Kathy » 7/21/2006, 5:04 am

Obviously it's a huge task, I don't question that. But there are obvious signs of mismanagement if you read the entire article. 3 examples:

-The last minute useless change to try to support Harper's visit, which only made things worse on the ground for staff members trying to deal with the crisis. His visit was no help to anyone. If his plane was not waiting in Cyprus another plane would have been - and the cost would have been the same since Harper kicked 100 people off his plane in France and they had to get last-minute full fares home on Canada's wallet anyway.
-The last minute change from Cyprus to Turkey because no one thought or asked in advance about the logistics of the situation (and the Cyprus government didn't even know Canada had set up office in a Cyprus hotel, so clearly they weren't asking any questions). And the fact that this location switch was not communicated properly to all stakeholders. Different staff members in various locations were operating under different assumptions for 24 hours.
-The fact that we were late getting into the game and have the most people to evacuate, but Canada ended up leasing the smallest available boats, while other contries with 10x less people ended up with much larger boats that would have gotten our job done much faster.
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Postby Korzic » 7/21/2006, 9:31 pm

Gee wow, where have I seen this before? Oh that's right in every country that's trying to get their citizens out of a warzone, there's the inevitable bitching... OMG AREN'T DOING ENOUGH!

I tire of this rubbish.
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Postby Kathy » 7/22/2006, 6:57 am

that's not exactly true, if you read all the international news sources. Some countries have done an amazing job and all of them beat Canada in knowing how many ppl they had in the war zone and leasing ships. Meanwhile, Harper was condoning Isreal's actions in the media as "measured" before Canada knew we had 40,000 people in harm's way.
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Postby Dabekk » 7/22/2006, 7:56 am

this evacuation fiasco is such a non-story. no matter how good a job harper had done the media would have found something that he didn't do as well as someone else. I'm not a fan of harper - I've never voted for him or his party and probably never will; but seriously, get over it.
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Postby myownsatellite » 7/22/2006, 8:55 am

Dude, everyone needs to lay off Kathy and chill out.
She's expressing an opinion and she did it rather well. If you don't want to talk politics, then stay out of the thread instead of yelling at her for pointing out a flaw in her government.

People in the US do it all the time. Yeah I'm sick of it, but if I don't really care I just don't pay any attention.

DISCUSS, don't flame.
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Postby petersl1 » 7/22/2006, 9:27 am

Harper and Bush are so alike that they could be brothers.
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Postby Kathy » 7/22/2006, 9:50 am

*waves to Lindsay and Megan*

I'm not exactly alone in this opinion... there have been upwards of 50 polls conducted this week, all with the same results. I was hoping for some discussion here but I guess that's too much to ask. I guess I should have known better, given that all the political discussion message boards (and even our water cooler discussions at work) degrade into East versus West, rural versus city, someone brings up the sponsorship scandal, someone else calls someone a redneck from Calgary, someone says all the problems in Canada are caused by immigration and we shouldn't let anyone else in, and everyone looks at an issue through their own political party's view instead of from an objective perspective, or even better, someone else's perspective. It's funny how people can't openly discuss politics without all this garbage.

It gets even better when all the staunchest conservative supporters in my office and my family get really racist and suggest that white people and tourists in Lebanon should be saved before Lebanese-Canadians or dual passport citizens. And that we should put them in a refugee camp here without letting them go home or to live with friends/relatives... because you know, they could all be terrorists. :freak: Political discussions have the ability to bring out the worst in people.

One recent Poll regarding evacuation
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Postby petersl1 » 7/22/2006, 10:04 am

Sounds like my office, Kathy. I have a "stealh" group of progressives i talk to about pollitics. We sort of have to hide and talk about our views. We laugh at how closed-minded and discriminating the others are.

All the rest are conservative wackos that also spout out racist comments all the time and think nothing of it. One day, I called one woman out for being blatantly racist. She acted completely shocked and tried to defend herself. I basically told her not to bother. She'd already said what she said.

I still have a John Kerry button up in my cube. It's not coming down. I could care less that he is not in office. It's my way of saying I F***ING HATE GEORGE BUSH.

P.S. I'm totally supporting Kathy on this one. This reminds me way too much of what happened in New Orleans.
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Postby Joe Cooler » 7/22/2006, 12:46 pm

petersl1 wrote: I have a "stealh" group of progressives i talk to about pollitics. We sort of have to hide and talk about our views. We laugh at how closed-minded and discriminating the others are.


That seems sort of contradictory some how.
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Postby nelison » 7/22/2006, 1:16 pm

Does the Canadian government even have a responsibility to get these people out? It was the choice of these people to go to Lebanon afterall, and they know about the risks involved in travelling within the Middle East. Yes, they should be able to go to the Canadian embassy or consulate and ask for assistance in leaving the country if they need to, but I don't think they should be complaining about the service they receive, and if anything they should be charged for the service provided.

I might just take a trip to Somalia, save a few bucks and buy a one-way ticket. The government can fly me back at the first sign of trouble (which at the rate things have gone there over the last 20 years should allow me to site-see for at least a good 2 or 3 days).

note: before you go saying "But Beirut's airport has been bombed, no one can leave the country" I again reference the point that when you travel to such a location you should understand that there are risks and that by traveling to these places you assume responsibility for whatever happens to you.
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Postby Kathy » 7/22/2006, 2:55 pm

Two issues...

One is that Lebanon has a huge tourist industry like many other countries and does not have terrorist attacks on an ongoing basis, contrary to the belief of many ppl in the western world. They had even predicted a record 1.6 million visitors by the end of the year and tourist revenues topping $2 billion. They have historical attractions, beaches, nightclubs, ecotourism, waterparks, etc. And it is very common for people to visit family in Lebanon in the summer. Up until last week, most democratic countries did not list Lebanon as a dangerous place to visit, like they would for Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.

If people were traveling to a country that their government had warned against (e.g. via embassy and travel sites), then I would have to agree with you, but that's not the case.

And the second problem I think lies with the government (and obviously not just the current government)... our dual citizenship program obviously has some flaws. Once you are a citizen it IS the government's responsibility to help in this kind of situation. But many of these people have not visited or lived in Canada for many years (5-10 or more) and we are still picking up the cost of helping them out of harm's way. Some European countries have expiring dual citizenship and once expired the government is not responsible for your safety. In contrast, some countries are picking up everyone, including those with expired documents, but they are considering charging evacuees for a part of the cost of the evacuation.
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Postby nelison » 7/22/2006, 5:56 pm

Well to the first point, people need to take responsibility for themselves. Just because the government has not issued a warning, you only need to do some research before hand to know what issues might arise. It is not as though Hezbollah wasn't a factor a year ago and it is not like Lebanon hasn't been in the news with regards to Syria and Isreal since the Iraq qar started.

The government didn't say that it was unsafe to go to Paris during the race riots last summer and the student protests this summer, yet I still made sure I knew what was going on and looked into what I could do if something escalated while I was there this past May (especially since we were staying at a hotel around the corner from the protests). In fact, I never even considered whether I could get help from the government and looked more into whether tickets and hotels could be refunded or changed.

As for your second point, I agree completely that dual citizenship is a substantial problem. These people should have to prove they have lived in Canada within the last 5 years before they are allowed to be evacuated. Unfortunately, Canada needs all the citizens it can get, so odds are it won't change these laws any time soon.
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Postby Korzic » 7/23/2006, 7:58 am

We also don't know how many citizens we have in Lebanon.

Our Government booked a ferry to get a stack of people out. The ferry company double booked itself and suddenly the current Government got the blame for that *boggle*

Our Government also got the blame for not leaving people behind. We chartered a Brit army chopper to evacuate some people and they didn't have room for luggage so these people decided not to go. *further boggle*

Suffice to say I completely refute and will ignore any YOU AREN'T DOING ENOUGH! whining and bitching and moaning. There are 2 things. If you're over there, living there with dual citizenship, make your own way out... especially if you've been there a while.

My second point is... Given the fact that there's 20 other countries trying to do the same thing that yours is, if you think you can do a better job... take your car over and truck people out yourself.
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Postby Kathy » 7/23/2006, 11:47 am

Sidenote: The corporation I worked for chartered a boat and a plane and had our people out on Friday before most countries began to put a plan in place.
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Postby Jamie M » 7/23/2006, 12:51 pm

Sure, this evacuation isn’t going off without a glitch, but what can you expect…

Canadians comprise Lebanon's largest foreign community, estimated at 50,000, and Canadian officials expect to evacuate some 30,000 of them.

*****

Cheers went up and tears poured down as another Lebanese-Canadian family was reunited at Halifax International Airport on Saturday night.

For Mrs. Beaini, criticism about the government's action during the crisis from those trying to get out of Lebanon was unfounded.

"[Canadians] live in such a well-organized country," she said. "They just take it for granted." John felt the same way. "They're criticizing but they're not considering how long it takes to evacuate that many people," he said.

*****

Not everything is the government’s fault :

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Israel had rejected requests from Australia and other countries to halt its bombing offensive and allow foreigners safe passage.

*****

After a relatively successful day Thursday in which some 1,400 people were evacuated, the Canadian embassy in Beirut had been hoping to move a similar number yesterday, only to find that it would only have the services of three of the seven ferries it had originally secured. […] Other countries may now be using some of the ships initially used by Canadians.

*****

The evacuation of Canadians from Beirut slowed again yesterday as fewer boats arrived than expected and progress continued to be hampered by Israel's naval blockade of Lebanon.

*****

Government officials said that the Israeli navy was also slowing the transit of the ships by insisting they be issued security certificates.

*****

Last week, Canada had experienced serious difficulties with the hiring of ships: Contracts could also be arranged for a single day, and other countries would outbid Canada while passengers were waiting for ships in Beirut.

*****

Other countries are having problems too :

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said his government had chartered a Turkish ship to carry hundreds of stranded Australians to Cyprus on Wednesday. But officials later found out they lost the vessel because it had been double-booked.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said it believes it has firm bookings to evacuate 2,400 Australians by Sunday, and there were hopes that others might leave on British, U.S., Canadian and U.N. ships.

*****

Other countries are experiencing even more serious problems. Australia, whose evacuation began later even than Canada's, has its escapees arriving in the same port on ships that can take between 8 and 24 hours to make the crossing, but then taking a further 10 hour bus ride to an airport in Ankara, where planes are in short supply so they often have to wait overnight.

The Canadians, by comparison, are shuttled more or less directly to the nearby airport in Adana, a 40-minute drive away, after one to two hours of immigration processing and a meal provided by the Turkish government.

*****

The United States, however, ran into troubles over the weekend when it realized that there are thousands more of its citizens in Lebanon than it had initially believed. Extra warships were sent to the beaches of Lebanon to pick up more citizens.

*****

And not everyone is complaining…

Other evacuees said that once in Turkey they were met by a well-organized team of embassy officials and that the rest of their trip was long but problem-free.

*****

"They did a great job," said Jeannine, 19, as she and her brother shared hugs and handshakes with her parents, friends and relatives.

"As soon as we got to Turkey it was very organized, it was very fast.

"I want to personally thank Prime Minister Stephen Harper." echoed John, 22.

*****

And some people will never be happy…

On the second day of US evacuations, a cruise liner, the Orient Queen, left Beirut Port carrying 1,059 Americans for Cyprus Wednesday. The luxury liner, owned by the Lebanese company Abou Merhi Cruises, has partnered with the US government to transport American citizens, many of whom are Lebanese-Americans or of Lebanese ancestry, to Cyprus.

Some Americans were not charmed by the luxuries of the ship. Helena Kasfy, who was visiting Lebanon with her five children ages three and half to seven, said: "It's been hell. They said we'll call you and they didn't. They treated us like dogs, like we were begging for something."

US Ambassador to Lebanon, Jeffrey Feltman [responded] : "We're an embassy, not a transport company. We brought in experts ... The top priority was safety."

*****
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Postby crustine » 7/23/2006, 12:54 pm

Interesting debate. I can't say that I have a huge opinon on the matter other than being appauled by the complaints of those who were on the first boat out. I do realize that these complaints were not by all people, many were grateful for the assistance getting out of a war zone. I found it very bizzare that people were blaming the government for people being seasick. What are they thinking. Yes it was uncomfortable passage, but it was passage which the thousands who were left behind would willingly have taken. I guess the message to me is that people will complain over just about anything.

I think I have a different perspective having grown up with parents who were in England durning the (Blitzkreig) second world war. I grew up with stories of school in bomb shelters, and how one deals with rations. I think as a result i really believed that breathing and eating really are priveledges. So to hear people complain that there wasnt enough water for the 16 hours that they were on the boat seems so self absorbed.

Again this was my reaction to one report, It was good to know that not all people felt the same way. I just reminds me that we must be media wary, not everything is a story.
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Postby Bandalero » 7/24/2006, 11:13 am

you know what, it could have been alot faster, and more effiecient.

but even if they didn't have these problems, people will always say things could always move faster, because bombs are falling out of the sky and people are scared for their lives.
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Postby nelison » 7/24/2006, 4:04 pm

Oddly enough in today's Toronto Metro newspaper there was a letter to the editor from a Kathy... eerily similar to the argument given by Kathy above... coincidence?
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