Stepping In It

Julian Fantino has never had a reputation for winning friends and influencing people. He not only has shocked and offended Haitians. He's also made enemies in the United States. The Globe and Mail reports that the State Department is not impressed:

One of the U.S. State Department’s top Haiti officials said it sees Canada as a valued partner in the country and doesn’t want it to change any of its programs.

“Haiti is not going to become a middle-income country overnight,” Eileen Wickstrom Smith, a senior official in the U.S. State Department’s Haiti office, said Wednesday.

“We continue our strong partnership with the government of Haiti and the people of Haiti, and we would like to see the Canadian government continue its programs. We think they’ve been an important contributor, and we would like them to stay that way.”

And, while the Harper government has been displaying its inept diplomacy at the UN for some time, Fantino has blackened Canada's reputation further:

A senior Haiti official from the United Nations Development Program said there’s more going on in Haiti than Mr. Fantino may have seen on his recent first trip to the country.

“We are saddened actually that Canada, they are reviewing their support,” said Jessica Faieta, a deputy director for the UNDP’s Latin American bureau.

“I think for anyone who comes to Haiti for the first time, you normally are actually shocked by the level of challenges that the country has. But we also need to look deep into the context of where the country is coming from.”

Any competent government minister would know that, when you visit a place for the first time, you listen and keep your mouth shut.

But who said that Fantino was a competent minister?  He knows nothing about diplomacy. One suspects that, were he crossing a cow pasture, he couldn't help but step in its leftovers.

Haiti In Fantino's Crosshairs

Julian Fantino -- who proclaimed before Christmas that Canada's foreign aid would be linked to Canadian corporate opportunities  -- announced this week that Canada was suspending aid to Haiti, that God-forsaken half of the island of Hispaniola:

“If I can put it to you bluntly, we will not be signing any more blank cheques,” Fantino said. “There will be expectations and accountability associated with future aid.”

The former head of the Ontario Provincial Police likes to be blunt. The problem is that, as he showed on the national defense file, he's clueless. If you want to know what's going on in Haiti, ask former Governor General -- and Haitian native -- Michaelle Jean, now the United Nations special envoy to the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere:

Jean defended the slow pace of recovery in Haiti, noting that problems like corruption can be found everywhere, including in Canada. She also said that international donors could do a better job supporting the Haitian government’s own plans to build an economy fuelled by more than global charity.

Still trying to recover from the earthquake, Haiti was ravaged by a hurricane. The nation has endured the modern equivalent of the trials of Job. And before the earthquake and the hurricane, the island was despoiled as a French colony and by American companies paying starvation wages for the manufacture of plush animals which sold for premium prices elsewhere.

Thirty-five years ago, my wife and I visited a clinic, situated on the hills of Porte-au-Prince. It was surrounded by hovels, all of which lacked indoor plumbing. A toilet was a bucket. The contents were dumped on the path leading down to the street. While we were visiting, there was a sudden cloudburst. The refuse slopped down to the gutter, where a woman was bathing in a slough, formed in the aftermath of the storm.

And Mr. Fantino talks about accountability? He needs to take a Haitian bath.