IGNATIEFF URGES CANADA TO SEND MISSION TO HAITI TO EVALUATE CHOLERA SITUATION
(Macleans.ca) - By Peter Rakobowchuk, The Canadian Press
MONTREAL - Michael Ignatieff is urging the federal government to send a mission to Haiti to determine if more resources are needed to fight the country's cholera outbreak.
"We just think the Canadian government cannot stand by while cholera ravages Haiti," the Liberal leader told reporters in Montreal on Monday.
"This is a country that has been in the inner circle of the damned for the past year."
An estimated 1,250 people have died from the cholera and thousands of others have become sick.
Ignatieff says Ottawa should send "a strategic evaluation mission right away" to take a closer look at the situation in the Caribbean country.
"Once we've done an evaluation around what's needed, it may be necessary to send the DART team or maybe even some element of a military mission to basically help these cholera hospitals get this thing under control," he said.
National elections will be held in Haiti next Sunday, but Ignatieff did not want to say whether he believes they should be put off because of the cholera epidemic.
"Listen, I don't want to get mixed up in the interior affairs of Haiti," he responded to one reporter.
"The only thing I know it's that children who are dying of cholera don't give a damn about elections."
Ignatieff noted that Canadians responded generously when Haiti was hit by an earthquake last January, and said the government can't stay on the fringes of the latest drama.
"We have to do something because it's becoming nightmarish and I believe a lot of Canadians and — especially Canadians of Haitian origin — are questioning the Harper government and asking what it's doing," he added.
The Liberal leader made his comments after addressing students at Dawson College during a public forum which was also webcast.
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