Former governor general Michaëlle Jean vividly remembers the shock of seeing the country of her birth after it was hit by a catastrophic earthquake on Jan. 12, 2010.
“It was as if an atomic bomb had been dropped on Haiti,” Jean said in an interview with The Canadian Press this week.
Ten years later, she is forced to conclude that the massive humanitarian aid effort that followed was a missed opportunity and a “failure for the international community.”
Jean was in her office at Rideau Hall in Ottawa when her aide-de-camp rushed in with the news: a devastating earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale had just rocked Haiti.
“I felt anxiety, shock. I feared the worst, but also felt an urgency to act,” she recalled.
She immediately called the Canadian ambassador in Haiti, who was only reachable by satellite phone.
In an anguished voice, he told her of an “unimaginable catastrophe” — entire neighbourhoods under rubble and fears that thousands could be dead.
In the end, that initial estimate was tragically far from the mark: between 200,000 and 300,000 people were killed, at least another 300,000 were injured and more than one million Haitians were left homeless.
As titular commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, the governor general contacted defence headquarters, and a Hercules plane was loaded with supplies. Normally under international conventions, a request for aid must come from the affected country, but the Canadian ambassador in Haiti said it would be pointless to wait.
“He said, ‘We can’t reach the president. We don’t even know who is alive,'” she recalled, so the Canadian government approved the plane’s departure.
Reports came in of towns that had been almost completely levelled. Jacmel, the town in the south of Haiti where Jean grew up, suffered tremendous destruction.
In Haiti as in Canada, people desperately searched for signs of life from loved ones.
“Every minute became unbearable,” she said. And then the names of the dead and missing emerged, one by one.
“One day I found myself alone in my office, and I screamed in sorrow,” she said.
Jean decided to visit the country, timing her trip to coincide with International Women’s Day on March 8, because she considers women to be particularly vulnerable in disaster situations.
Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean walks into the demolished St. Trinite church in Port-au-Prince on Mar. 10, 2010. Jean was baptized as a baby in the church. With her are her husband, Jean-Daniel Lafond, left, and Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin. (Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press)
“The level of suffering, of misery, was immense,” she said. “But there was also this pride, this desire to believe that things are going to get better and this hope.”
She said she was struck by Haitian women who welcomed her by singing. “What was in place in Haiti was resistance,” she said, adding that she does not like the word “resilience” and its suggestion of a certain acceptance of one’s situation.
The challenge facing Haiti was monumental, she said, noting that 60 per cent of the country’s civil servants perished in the earthquake. Hiring replacements was difficult as the state struggled to compete with international organizations that paid better.
Jean said the government quickly found itself overwhelmed, unable to absorb all the offers of help.
She has harsh words for the non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, that arrived en masse after the disaster.
“The organizations are there each for themselves, for their own interests, disconnected from Haitian NGOs and showing no willingness to work with them,” she said. She said she tried to encourage the foreign organizations to work with Haitian partners, but got nowhere.
She said there was necessary emergency assistance, and some initiatives yielded results. But in the end the impact of the international NGOs did not endure. Jean now considers it a textbook example of “the bankruptcy of humanitarian aid.”
When she visited the devastated country as governor general, Jean told Haitians: “You are not alone.”
Ten years later, she acknowledged the Haitian people feel alone, even betrayed.
“People hoped that from this great misfortune a better life would come,” she said. “For the international community, there is an acknowledgement of serious failure.”
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
