No, Mr. Cherry,
you are not right.
It was just a little over three years ago that Haiti was devastated by a magnitude 7 earthquake. Between one and 1.5 million Haitians were left homeless, 100,000 or more were killed. The capital, Port – au – Prince, was flattened.
As the CIA World Factbook puts it: “Already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with 80 per cent of the population living under the poverty line and 54 per cent in abject poverty, the earthquake inflicted $7.8 billion in damage … Haiti received $4.59 billion in international pledges for reconstruction, which has proceeded slowly.”
The federal government pledged $550 million, some of it based on matching private donations from Canadians, which quickly reached $220 million.
Yet a year ago, barely half of the pledged international aid money had been disbursed. The United States and Venezuela, who promised the most, have delivered the least relatively speaking.
Last year, Canada sent another $49.5 million to Haiti. It is the largest recipient country of Canada’s pathetic foreign aid. We spend around $5 billion in aid—not even half what we pledged in the 1970s when the rich nations of the world promised to spend 0.7 per cent of their gross national income on aid.
And it’s a little more than one – fifth of what we spend on our military.
But that $50 million to Haiti is $50 million too much according to Don Cherry. Mr. Cherry recently sent a series of tweets to his 118,000 followers that were quickly picked up by the media.
“You know, I am one of those guys, like most people in Canada, we like to help the countries all over the world. But sometimes it makes you wonder,” he wrote. “Maybe it’s just me. But Canada gave Haiti $49.5 million dollars last year. Are we nuts?”
At this point, it is temping to reflect the question back, but there’s more.
“We’ve got a guy dying in Toronto waiting 3 hours for an ambulance,” he tweeted, referring to an elderly nursing home patient with a do – not – resuscitate order whose situation was called in as low priority by the nursing home but who died while ambulances were busy with higher priority calls.
“We got people waiting 7, 8, 10 hours, if they’re lucky, in a waiting room with one doctor for a zillion people.”
Not quite, Don. There are about 20 physicians for 10,000 people in Canada. That’s low for a developed country, although not far off other places. But if you want a lot of doctors, communist Cuba has the highest ratio at 67 physicians per 10,000.
“We nickel and dime our doctors, nurses and veterans plus a million other services. Yet we can send almost 50 million to Haiti.”
Nickel and dime doctors? Really? Family physicians made about $125,000 after expenses in 2011, according to the journal Health Affairs. For registered nurses providing patient bedside care, the range is about $58,000 to $74,000 according to Registered Nurse Canada.
“I’ll tell ya something,” he continued, “the working guy is getting kind of sick of people spending money like that … Lets smarten up. As the old saying goes, charity begins at home. Am I right or is it just me?”
Well, no, you’re wrong, Don. Although sadly it’s not just you. (And at $800,000 a year, his CBC contract lets him speak for 20 average working guys his age.)
The Toronto Sun’s Peter Worthington quickly came to Don’s defense. The problem is that Haitians are lacking “self – reliance.” And are burdened with “corrupt and incompetent politicians.” Because Canada has none of those ….
“It is up to Haitians to save themselves and end the decades of being a beggar nation,” wrote Worthington.
A little perspective on that. In 1825, France forced Haiti to pay a ransom of 90 million gold francs—about $20 billion dollars—as compensation for the loss of slaves and property in the wake of independence in 1804. The interest rates were so crippling that the debt wasn’t paid off until 1947.
Back to Don. Charity—grace and love, that is—does begin at home. As a nation, we need to reflect on that, because it’s clear we aren’t quite as charitable as we’d like to think.
