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HomeMy WebLinkAboutHuron Expositor, 2016-12-21, Page 44 Huron Expositor • Wednesday, December 21, 2016 www.seaforthhuronexpositor.com Nuron Expositor PUBLISHED WEEKLY — EST. 1860 P.O. Box 69, 8 Main Street Seaforth Ontario NOK 1W0 phone: 519-527-0240 fax: 519-527-2858 www.seaforthhuronexpositor [p] POSTMEDIA NEIL CLIFFORD Advertising Director neil.cl ifford@sun media.ca SHAUN GREGORY Multimedia Journalist shaun.gregory@sunmedia.ca DIANNE MCGRATH Front Office seaforth.classifieds@sunmedia.ca NANCY DEGANS Media Sales Consultant ndegans@postmedia.com SUBSCRIPTION RATES 1 YEAR $50.00 (47.62+2.38 GST) 2 YEAR $95.00 (90.48+4.52 GST) SENIORS 60 WEEKS $50.00 (47.62+2.38 GST) 120 WEEKS $95.00 (90.48+4.52 GST) Publications Mail Agreement No. 40064683 RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT P.O. 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We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canadian Periodical Fund (CPF) for our publishing activities. Canada Surely Canada can do something to help Aleppo �am certainly not a foreign policy wonk, but I have to say, as an rdinary citizen, I am gob - smacked bywhat Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said Thursday about the crisis in Aleppo, which was, essentially, that it's tragic and all, but that the Canadian Forces won't be getting involved. "Our focus has always been in Iraq," Sajjan told reporters on a conference call, "and that is our focus now:' This came in the wake ofAlep- po's falling two days earlier in Syria, right next door to Iraq, to the Rus- sian- and Iran- and Hezbollah - backed Syrian army. After years of civil war featuring President Bashar Assad's starve - and -siege tactics (wherebyyou sur- round an area, then squeeze it of humanitarian aid and weaken any resistance), the use of chemical weapons and barrel bombs, and the deliberate targeting of hospitals and clinics and, always, civilians, Aleppo fell on Tuesday. Throughout, as my Postmedia colleague Terry Glavin wrote furi- ously, the intemational community, including Canada, effectively sat on its hands, occa- sionally bleating inanities at the United Nations and making useless demands that hostilities cease. The very notion that Russia or Assad would "take a strong look at themselves and the atrocities that are being committed," as Sajjan suggested that day, and would be suffused with shame such that they were moved to end the crisis, is laughable. As for "our focus" on Iraq, and with all due regard for the high quality of the Canadian soldier and airman, itis nonetheless a minimal- ist -type focus in a restrained effort Launched two years ago byU S. President Barack Obama against the extremist Islamic State (or ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or the now -favoured Arabic acronym, Daesh). Canada is contributing there with surveillance aircraft, a refuel- ling plane, and about 200 Canadian special forces on the ground advis- ing Kurdish forces and at their side in gunfights. The coalition has notbeenwithout successes: The Iraqi militaryhasbeen overhauled and retrained, and there are about 30,000 Iraqi and Kurdish soldiers now par t icipating in the offensive on Mosul, the last cityinlSlL control. It's just the opposite in Syria, where only the provincial capital, Idlib,west of Aleppo, remains under rebel con- trol (and these are Islamist rebels, induding the Syrian branch of al- Qaida, so it's certainly complicated). I'm not surewhatwouldwork, but we sure knowwhat doesn't: doing nothing. Doing nothing allowed Rus- sia to occupy the space, as British For- eign SecretaryBoris Johnson put it recently about his own country'sfail- ure to act. Diplomacyhasn'tworked, in large measure because shame doesn'tworkwiththelikes ofAssad or Russian President Vladimir Putin. Handwringing hasn't either: And as evacuation efforts are now underway for the estimated 50,000 civilians trapped in Aleppo, they are already marred with reports of atrocities, and only 1,000 people have been safely taken out. But what is particularly grating is that the Canadiangovemmentis openlyonthe hunt foranewmission for the Canadian Forces. Just what form it will take, even in precisely what country, isn't clear, but both Prime Minister Justin Tmdeau and Sajjan have their hearts set on doing something somewhere in Africa. As the PM told a group of high school students last month, and as the Toronto Star reported at the time, this mission will attempt to tackle "root causes of conflict" because going to fight isn't justifica- tion enough for deployment. "Canada has an awful lot to offer other than just stopping people from shooting at each other;' Tmdeausaid then. And Sajjan told the paper in a separate interview about a week later that Canada has committed to a three-year deployment andwill be spread among several unidentified African countries where radicaliza- tion bylocal insurgent groups is a sig- nificantproblem. Mali and Congo are reportedly the best bets, and undoubtedly Canadian peacekeepers — or peacemakers — could do a world of good in either place. Stop donating canned goods to food drives: Your corned mutton castoffs are only making things worse Tristin Hopper Postmedia It's one of Canada's most cher- ished holiday practices, and it may also be unwittingly rob- bing resources from some of Can- ada's most important charities. You've seen it at the office. You've seen it at the library. You've seen it at your kids' Christmas recital. You've seen it championed by police, firefight- ers and municipal officials. I'm talking, of course, about donating canned goods to holi- day food drives. Now don't get me wrong. Donating to charity is a good thing, particularly during the holidays, when many charities budget for yuletide donations. But, the simple rules of econom- ics are begging you: Give money to food banks, rather than food. Canned goods have a particu- larly low rate of charitable retum. They're heavy, they're awkward and they can be extremely difficult to fit into a family's meal plan. Worst of all, the average consumer is buying their canned goods at four to five times the rock -bottom bulk price that can be obtained by the food bank itself. That $1 you spent on tuna could have purchased $4 worth of tuna if put in the hands of non-profit employee whose only job is to buy food as cheaply as possible. The savvy buyers at the Calgary Food Bank, for instance, promise that people's time before it ends up And as donations go, it's much they can stretch $1 into $5. shunted into a dumpster. more satisfying to donate a mini - Probably the worst tragedy of All this has been known for years, van filled with Ragu than to send the inefficient food drive is holi- and yet the practice continues. a $100 e -transfer. day events and theater perfor- There's a few reasons for this. Charities know this, and it's mances where organizers ask for First, charities are extremely leery another reason why they are so hes- canned food donations in lieu of about telling people how to donate. itantto pooh-pooh canned food selling tickets. Nothing alienates a good samaritan drives, despite the extra logistical The better option, of course, is to faster than watching them pull up cost. Non -profits know that people keep selling tickets and donate the in a cube van of donated food, only get a 131117 from loudly dropping $6 box office take to the food bank By to suggest that "maybe next time worth of cans into an office ham - not doing this, these well-meaning they just cut a cheque:' When chari- per, and they're happy to channel organizers are effectively surren- ties get picky, it's human for would- that urge towards something good. dering vast amounts of critically be donors to think that they don't They also know it's a tougher needed grocery money in exchange really the need the help that bad. sell to convince schools and for heavy cardboard boxes filled Second, people don't trust chari- offices to merely pass the hat for with god knows what ties. Charities have particularly frag- the hungry, rather than big photo - And then there's the logistical ile brands, and it only takes one or worthy gestures like building tow - nightmare when these boxes show two charitable scandals showing up ers of creamed com. up at the food banks loading dock in someone's Facebook feed for So, ifyou feelyour coworkers or Put yourself in the place of a them to start casting aspersions on students need something spherical food bank that has just accepted our nation's non -profits. and tactile in order to fire their benev- an anarchic 40 pound box of ran- So, by donating a flat of con- olent instints, then by all means hold dom food from an office fund- densed milk instead of $30, donors a food drive, and remind people to raiser. It's got pie filling, Kraft Din- feel they are insulating themselves stickto the always -needed staples like ner, beans, pumpkin and chick against any unseemly corruption. peanutbutter and canned fish peas. All those food items need to This was something seen during But if you're a pragmatist just be sorted, stored, inventoried and the Fort McMunayfires.ManyAlber- looking to vanquish as much pov- then shoehomed into the food tans, leery of seeingmonetarydona- erty as possible with your disposa- bank's distribution schedule. tions vanish down some kind of ble income, suck it up, key in your It's bad form to have low- bureaucratic blackhole,insisted credit card number and enter the income families eat nothing but instead on donating mountains of glorious world of anonymous, non - creamed corn until the stocks diapers and toiletries that got wasted glamourous philanthropy. run dry, so some items move And lastly, something that is That empty food hamper at faster than others. probably the most uncomfortable your office needn't be a mark of Consider the Herculean plight fact about all this; it doesn't feel as shame, but a badge of honour. of the food bank warehouse good to donate money. As much But don ttakemywordforit Lis - manager, and it's easy to imag- as we like to pretend that charita- ten to my 2014video selfin the top of ine how a particularly unhelpful ble giving is a selfless act, a lot of it this post And check out Food Banks box of food could end up doing is driven by the human need to Canada to donate or find a food bank nothing but wasting a bunch of feel special and magnanimous. dosetoyour community.