Toronto Sun reporter Garth Pritchard writes a pretty damning report of the Liberal Canadian PM’s visit to Sri Lanka over the past few days.
IT WAS a circus when Prime Minister Paul Martin visited the disaster area of Kalumai in Sri Lanka this week for a photo opportunity. His people from Ottawa, including the RCMP, were pushing people out of the way, grabbing at cameras, and trampling over graves on the beach in order to photograph the PM.
An RCMP guy tried to interfere with my camera, but one of our soldiers intervened.
A couple of women from the PM’s office were running around yelling at people.
It got out of hand. It was crazy.
The whole visit was a photo opportunity—with cameras set up for the PM in designated spots: Martin on the beach looking out to sea, Martin amid the wreckage, Martin with a homeless kid, Martin taking a token drink of water produced by the DART (Disaster Assistance Response Team) water purifier.
He met with the Canadian commander, Lt. Col. Mike Voith, and a small medical team but didn’t visit the camp of the 200 Canadian military people here for tsunami victims.
Martin’s handlers wanted no one but their people taking photos. The padre was even shoved out of the way.
And then Martin was gone—helicoptered out. Maybe 90 minutes in the area. Embarrassing. I’m in Sri Lanka with the DART men and women and, as Canadian soldiers always do, they’re working miracles—but the PM didn’t have time to visit them.
I found it a slap in the face.
Why couldn’t the PM’s handlers have taken him to the soldiers, who are doing a fantastic job?
There were eyebrows raised at the camp when it was learned that he wouldn’t be visiting.
The PM would have been prouder to be a Canadian if he’d seen how Canadians soldiers are responding. Yesterday we delivered 35,000 litres of fresh water to people.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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