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Helicopters may be added to Canada’s typhoon response

So far, 118 of the 200-person Disaster Assistance Response Team have
left Canada to help clear roads of debris obstructing relief efforts
and purify drinking water.

While the first contingent is already on Panay Island, a second wave
of 54 Canadian Forces personnel left Wednesday on a large CC-177
Globemaster military transport aircraft from Comox, B.C., to Hawaii, and
is expected to arrive in the Philippines on Friday.

The DART team will begin heading Friday to its Panay Island
headquarters in the town of Roxas and will be working alongside the
Philippine army and regional emergency co-ordination centres.

As requested by the Philippine government, DART will focus on a
stretch of coastal area from Roxas east to the town of Concepcion,
covering both Capis and Iloilo provinces where nearly 270,000 families
were affected by the typhoon.

Lt.-Col. Walter Taylor, DART commanding officer and commander of the
joint task force, said that while Panay Island isn’t home to the
“complete chaos” in the hardest-hit areas like Tacloban city, it is in
dire need of Canada’s help.

“Despite that people didn’t die in the storm, the conditions are ripe
for the diseases that you see in situations where people are crammed in
evacuation centres without appropriate toilet facilities and clean
drinking water, diseases like cholera and typhoid,” Lt.-Col Walter said
on the phone from the Philippines.

Many homes were completely destroyed, crops ready for harvest
were uprooted or ruined by salt water and emergency food supplies are
running out since the typhoon hit.

“The people are living in the most squalid conditions trying to salvage what they can,” said Lt.-Col. Taylor.

Canada is also waiting for word on whether to deploy three to six
Griffon helicopters to help medical teams access some of the remote
smaller islands cut off from hospitals on the main islands.

DART will be helping to run water purification units, repair hospital
generators and remove debris on roads using chainsaws and heavy
equipment to help aid groups access areas blocked by the typhoon.

Col. Stephen Kelsey of the Canadian Joint Operations Command stressed
that the goal of DART is not to help with immediate search-and-rescue
demands but rather “bridge the gap” to help support governments and
humanitarian agencies.

“Our policy as a military force conducting assistance in a foreign
country is that we are there in a supporting role,” said Taylor. “We are
there to help the host nation. We’re there to help the country that has
requested assistance.”

However, not everyone thinks DART is the best solution at this point.

“We’re not making the right response,” said Samantha Nutt, founder of
War Child Canada. “DART is a very expensive initiative,” Samantha Nutt,
founder of War Child Canada, told CBC’s The Current earlier this week. “It takes a long time for it to be on the ground.”

Nutt notes that the U.S. military is already stationed in the Pacific and the Philippine military is on hand.

“Certainly, there might be some added value in a few weeks when it
comes to rebuilding the water and sanitation infrastructure and DART
certainly has some expertise around that,” said Nutt. “But again, given
the cost of that initiative, there are other really important ways that
the Canadian government can help and certainly is helping.”

Nutt says she’d like to see the Canadian government providing direct
support to the Philippine government and more support to the extensive
network of non-governmental organizations on the ground that are already
mobilized.

DART came under criticism following missteps in its 2010 Haiti
mission. The team arrived in the quake-ravaged country without proper
equipment, such as guns and body armour, some members didn’t have the
necessary training and some critical medical supplies were bumped from
flights, according to a post-mission report.

The report suggested that the “push to deploy rapidly” may have
satisfied the “appearance that Canada was doing something,” but
“adversely affected” the key goal of providing humanitarian aid.

Ali Asgary, a York University professor who specializes in emergency
management, says though the government does post-mission assessments,
like the one of the Haiti mission, it's hard to find independent reviews
of how well the 17-year-old team is faring.

However, Asgary says now is not the time for debate.

“Discussions around whether we should use it or not at this point is
not really too much relevant,” said Asgary. “This is one of the Canadian
capacities in responding to international disaster.”

Many countries around the world have similar international disaster
response teams, though most are non-military in comparison to Canada’s
DART, which is largely made up of Canadian Forces members, notes Asgary..

Teams around the world vary in their specializations. Germany,
for example, is equipped to deal with a rapid-response search-and-rescue
team, says Asgary.

Although Canada’s team is often referred to as rapid response, it
focuses more on the relief period just after the immediate emergency
response but before rebuilding begins. DART teams deploy for up to two
months.

In some missions, such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake where it provided
security, DART goes outside its conventional mandate, said Asgary.

DART is made up of 200 Canadian Forces personnel in total designed to
fly out to disasters around the world, helping provide clean drinking
water and medical treatment. An affected country or the United Nations
must request DART before the federal government will deploy it.

Canadian Forces started the team in 1996 due to its experience two
years prior where relief groups arrived in Rwanda too late to save
thousands from a cholera epidemic.

Since then, the team has deployed to at least five massive disasters
around the world. The latest deployment was to Haiti after the Jan. 12,
2010 earthquake.

Before that, it was involved in missions to Pakistan after a 2005
earthquake, the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia, a 1999 quake in Turkey
and a 1998 hurricane in Honduras.

"We're proud that our men and women in uniform are once again saving
lives and bringing much help to those in need,"  International Affairs
Minister Christian Paradis said Thursday.