ARTICLE - SCOTIA BANK

GOAR: CANADIANS PROVIDE SPARKS OF HOPE AMIL HAITI'S RUBBLE
(Toronto Star) - By Carol Goar, Editorial Board

From his vantage point in Pétitionville on the hills east of Port-au-Prince, Maxime Charles has watched his country struggle back to its feet after last year’s devastating earthquake.

Charles is head of Scotiabank in Haiti. By Canadian standards, he runs a small operation, four branches with 79 employees. But in Haitian terms, Scotiabank is a pillar of the financial system and Charles is one of the country’s top executives.

In the aftermath of the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake, he has also become a pivotal figure in the relief and reconstruction effort.

When Canadian volunteers couldn’t find their contacts in the initial chaos, he got them connected or linked them to aid agencies. When bank employees in hard-hit neighbourhoods started collecting necessities for those who had lost everything, he provided money and on-the-ground assistance. When the headquarters of Citibank, a competitor, was flattened, he invited the American bank to share Scotiabank’s premises for six months.

As president of the professional bankers association, Charles worked hard to keep liquidity flowing. As the leader of a Canadian bank, he has hosted trade missions, hoping to drum up badly needed foreign investment for Haiti’s construction, mining and tourism sectors. As the son of a diplomat (his father was Haiti’s ambassador in Washington), he worked with the World Bank and other international agencies.

Last week, Charles was in Toronto to deliver a simple message: Voluntarism is essential to Haiti’s recovery. No matter how much assistance foreign governments and multilateral agencies pour into the country, it will take acts of personal altruism to restore hope and rebuild lives.

He has seen many such acts from his colleagues in the past 12 months. “One little boy, I remember, was hit on the head and badly injured. Our local bank manager drove him to the Dominion Republic to get medical care,” he said.

One of his employees lost part of her house. She moved into part that was still standing and organized her neighbours to donate to people worse off than them. One group of bank employees flew in from Winnipeg, using their holidays to join the relief effort. Another group in Asia rounded up a shipment of emergency supplies, money and clothing.

“People (in Haiti) looked at me and said: Is this the Canadian way?”

Picking up on that theme, the bank’s president and CEO, Rick Waugh, launched a new international program last Friday. The $2 million philanthropic initiative has three components:

• The first, aimed at Scotiabank employees, recognizes two individuals and two teams for helping those in need. It provides them with substantial donations ($2,500 for individuals, $5,000 for teams) for the charity of their choice.

• The second, aimed at young people, provides winning applicants with $1,000 to contribute to the charity of their choice, plus a laptop or tablet computer for themselves.

• The third, a $1 million gift to Sick Kids hospital is designed to bolster its international patient program.

Although the program is not aimed specifically at Haiti, the country will be one of the principal beneficiaries.

Waugh believes in investing in the communities where Scotiabank does business. And Charles, who sees the rubble and homeless camps every day, wants to be a catalyst for community action.

Like most corporate philanthropy, this initiative is partly marketing. It burnishes the bank’s image as a socially responsible employer.

But it taps into something deeper: the willingness of ordinary Canadians to change a life, build a home, open a school.

It is one of Canada’s underutilized resources. It doesn’t shift with the political winds. It doesn’t ebb when the spotlight fades. Best of all, it is infinitely renewable. Each generation replenishes the supply.