Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Issue 10 - Evidence - February 13, 2007
OTTAWA, Tuesday, February 13, 2007
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade met this day at 5:22 p.m. to examine and report on the evacuation of Canadian citizens from Lebanon in July 2006.
Senator Hugh Segal (Chairman) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chairman: I would like to welcome you gentlemen to the meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade to examine and report on the evacuation of Canadian citizens from Lebanon in July 2006.
[English]
We have heard from the Canadian military, Canadian Foreign Service officers, and people who worked on the ground and coordinated efforts from Ottawa. We have heard about various aspects of the planning that took place both rapidly and over the medium term. We have heard of the logistical parts of the operation that worked well from people directly involved in it.
Today's meeting will allow us to get the perspective of a senior Canadian correspondent, in this case for the CBC, Ms. Susan Ormiston, who was on location in Lebanon and Cyprus throughout the hostilities and the subsequent evacuation.
Ms. Ormiston started her career at CBC in 1981 and has since been a network reporter for Marketplace and a host of CBC News Morning as well as the Fifth Estate, to name a few. For two years, Ms. Ormiston hosted her own media program, Inside Media on CBC Newsworld. She now does documentaries and is a senior correspondent for The National.
In July 2006, Ms. Ormiston was on the ground in Larnaca, Cyprus when the ships carrying Canadian evacuees arrived from Lebanon. She witnessed first hand the evacuation process and got an inside look at Canada's rescue operation.
Ms. Ormiston, welcome to the Senate of Canada and to our committee meeting. We thank you for arranging to come from Afghanistan to be present to take questions from colleagues. I realize that this will be a different experience for you. We will be asking you questions. It is not the normal process, but we do not expect you will have any difficulty in giving us the frankness you expect from us when questions are posed in an opposite context.
Let me begin by asking for your general impressions — and please be frank and open — as to the effectiveness, efficiency, the coherence of the Canadian operation. Please relate to us the gap between what Canadians insitu might have expected over what they received. Please relate any general frame of reference that your observations suggest, relative to planning, so that we might be able to do this better and more effectively, if necessary in the future.
Susan Ormiston, CBC Correspondent, as an individual: Thank you for inviting me. It is a unique experience to be on this side of the Senate committee. You have thrown down the gauntlet as I expected, Senator Segal. Frankness is what we demand of you and I will do my best.
My role here is as an interpreter of what I saw anecdotally and of my observations. It is not my role to provide expertise or opinion but analysis of what I saw in the weeks that I was in Cyprus and Lebanon. I want to start by giving you a framework of where I was and when so you understand the context.
Forgive me if my details are a bit foggy. I have just spent a month in Afghanistan and I do not want to confuse my wars. It was sometime ago and I have had to go back and review my notes on this extraordinary conflict and evacuation.
I believe it was the night of July 19 when I arrived in Larnaca, Cyprus having been parachuted in as a correspondent to help cover the conflict. It was the same night the Prime Minister came in on his plane from the G8 Summit in Europe. The Prime Minister's plane was diverted, as you may recall, and arrived in Larnaca about the same. I remember arriving at the airport and getting a call from my foreign editor saying: You have landed, great. The first boat carrying Canadians out from Beirut is arriving in the port of Larnaca at midnight. It was ten o'clock that night. Our first piece of business was to get down to the port. My editor told me that the Prime Minister had arrived as well. This was news to me. I had been traveling for about 16 hours.
We made haste to the port where there were a number of chartered ships. We expected to receive the first boatload of Canadian passport holders leaving Beirut. It did not arrive at midnight. It did not arrive at 2 a.m. or at 6 a.m. We were told that it was about to arrive, but it did not. In fact, it was one o'clock the next afternoon that both the reporters and the Prime Minister learned that the boat was finally coming into view.
That was the first shock of what had happened. I was not in Beirut at the time; I was on the other side, on the receiving end. There was a great deal of chaos, as you have probably heard, on the Beirut side in processing the numbers of people who showed up at the port of Beirut wanting to get on that first boat. I was not there; I cannot speak to that situation. My colleagues tell me it was a chaotic, frustrating experience for everyone involved.
The first boat to arrive, the Blue Dawn — I recall these details vividly — was a Lebanese boat chartered by Canada. The boat usually carries 100 leisure passengers; there were 250 onboard. It was hot, 40 degrees. The passengers had been on the sea for 15 hours on a trip that normally takes between six to nine hours. They were hot, dehydrated and upset. I have retold this story to many colleagues and friends who asked me what it was like on the port that day. They came off the boat and the first thing I saw was babies being rushed off; a couple suffering from dehydration. I know what dehydration looks like; the babies were limp and the medics got them off quickly. There clearly was a problem with water on that ship, probably caused by the length of passage, in that no one expected it to take that long.
From what I understand — and it was told to me by several people — the Israelis stopped this boat twice enroute to Larnaca from Beirut and held it up while they were searching, or whatever they were doing, enroute. That was not expected. Each time it took two hours and that voyage got longer and longer.
People at home were shocked to see how angry some of the people were, but to put it into some context, these people had travelled from very tense situations. They had travelled to Beirut the day before, hoping to get on that boat, and having been told to show up, were probably exhausted and very stressed and hot. You cannot minimize that. They had been waiting at the port of Beirut for so long before they got on the boat, and then that voyage took an extra two hours.
When they came off the boat, there were some who were spitting mad, to be honest. They expressed that while they were grateful to be on a safe shore, given what they had been through, they were traumatized by the experience.
That was the first boat. The other contextual detail I can add is that the Prime Minister had come, from my understanding, to welcome this first boat. We were told that for security reasons, he stayed at the airport on the plane and did not come down to the port. He was stuck on the tarmac for more than 24 hours while we were all waiting for these boats to arrive.
The processing of these people was quite efficient once they arrived at port. There were buses and people were led quickly onto them. Medical treatment, water and everything was given to those who needed it, and they were taken to a processing facility around the back of the port administration, which was off limits to us.
Later, we caught up with them in a large facility in Larnaca, a gymnasium of some sort. There was room for the children to run around; there was space, water, food and shelter. This seemed like a good, safe place for these people to recuperate from their experience.
That night, I think about midnight, about 63 of them were invited on to the Prime Minister's plane to be flown back to Canada; the rest were put on chartered flights. I recall that, for security reasons, at least one person was rejected from accompanying the Prime Minister. That was one of our questions; namely, how does this happen, how are the people chosen?
That is the general description of what happened that first day. You probably remember that it set a tone back home, which I was unaware of at the time. People were shocked at the frustration of these people coming off the boat, given that it was a war zone and they were getting out.
I spent three days at the port; I do not think we saw our hotel room during those days. The subsequent boats were better and larger. They were not, in some cases, Lebanese chartered boats, which might be a problem if you are in Israeli-controlled blockade waters and you have a Lebanese ship.
The organization had improved by then. The DND people had arrived the same day we had, so they were in place. At the time, I think there was quite a bit of discussion about how they, perhaps, were a bit more versed in moving large groups of people in crisis. That was helpful.
The Chairman: Did you see evidence of that when the DND people arrived, the logistics of moving people seemed to improve?
Ms. Ormiston: Yes, I did; I had long conversations with them at the hotel. They set up a command centre at a hotel, which was not there when we arrived. They started to move people around, as they are trained to do. DFAIT had help at that point, which it badly needed.
You know, of course, that there is a consulate in Larnaca, not an embassy, and there were not that many people there, I do not know how many there were.
The people that arrived after the first boat were happier. They were more content because the system was oiled and moving along better. After that, I took a French boat from Larnaca to Beirut and came in several days later. I followed the mopping up of that evacuation, which took about a week with ships leaving Beirut daily.
There was a big facility at the embassy area in Beirut, which you have heard about, where they were trying to marshal people through that process. I was in Beirut until the end of the regular evacuations. I think it was the weekend before I departed.
In general, that is the experience of those first few days. I did go back to my notes because I transcribed what we call ``clips'' from people who were interviewed. The frustration is clear in their voices. I have a clip from the spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, talking about how they acknowledged that the first 24 to 48 hours were not effective, and that they had to learn from that first boat experience to improve the process in the subsequent days.
Senator Dawson: Thank you for being here. How did we compare to other countries? You were on site. I have a quote here from the minister saying:
First of all, there was no confusion among those working for the department. The response was immediate, contrary to what was reported by the media. The response was appropriate and very fast.
Since you were the media at that time, and we were getting much of our information from the media, we got our first image of the chaos. Was there confusion — not that I do not recognize the fact that it was a situation that merited a certain level of confusion — but how did we compare to other countries? You mentioned that you were on a boat with the French. How were they working with their evacuees?
Ms. Ormiston: The French were the only ones who would take the scribes back in. I did a story talking about people who go into harm's way. Why would they?
Regarding a comparison, when I arrived in Larnaca, other countries had already started their evacuation. There were huge ships coming in. My impression in the first 24 hours, because we were standing there watching this hour after hour, was that it was an American ship that came in, a large cruise ship, a luxury liner, if you will, with more than 1,000 people on it, if I remember correctly. There did not seem to be the same type of confusion, from my observation.
There was confusion, in my view, about when the boats were coming and how they were to be processed. That confusion was minimized as the days went on. The circumstances were such that you would expect there would be some confusion. I cannot say that there was not any confusion.
Senator Dawson: I do not want to put you on the hot spot of making a comment. What would you recommend that we do differently? We talked a bit before about the numbers; we did not know at the time how many people had to be evacuated. Do you have any information that we are better off one year later or have things not changed at all?
Ms. Ormiston: I do not know if things have changed. As you know, this was the largest emergency evacuation Canada has ever attempted and it came upon us in an instant; the whole war did.
I have given some thought and research to the idea of multinationals and have been completely incapable of finding accurate numbers. I think it would be useful for a country to know the location of its citizens.
From talking to the representative for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Larnaca, I got the impression that they were open and frank about the fact that there were some serious problems with the coordination efforts that first day. They were very open to fixing them. I am assuming that they have gone back and looked at that evacuation to see how they can improve their operations. However, that is an assumption.
I am a bit shy to comment on what could be done better because I think the serious problems were on the Beirut side with those first few ships. My colleagues described the scene as desperate, with many people lined up in the heat, not knowing what they were doing. Somehow, that communication went awry. I know that the staff in Beirut was equally stressed and small to handle that kind of an effort.
Senator Downe: Could you tell the committee about your experience dealing with the Government of Canada officials. Was the information that you received correct? Was there any attempt at all to spin the story, or were they as open as you indicated in your response to Senator Dawson, both in your first stop and when you went to Beirut?
Ms. Ormiston: I will start with Beirut because by that time, a better communication system was set up. We had people we could phone on a regular basis: How many people are going? When are they going? When are the ships leaving? The system was working well about three-to-five days after that first evacuation.
In Larnaca, I do not know where communication fell down, but no one knew when that first boat was arriving. I am not sure why. I mean, boats have communications capabilities. There was continual confusion about what time it was arriving and how many people were onboard. I am not suggesting it was deliberate or spun, but there was a lot of confusion. For a 12-hour period, we did not know when the boat was coming and why it was taking so long on the sea. If I recall correctly, and details are a bit foggy, there was a period of a couple of hours when no one seemed to know the location of the boat. That was confusing to me. I am not a mariner, but I assume there is a way of communicating.
Senator Downe: This was a big story for Canada, and the CBC was there in force. Did the private Canadian television and radio stations send journalists as well?
Ms. Ormiston: Yes, CTV had a team and Global may have had a team. Everyone was there; everyone had dishes up. CNN was there; it was a circus.
Senator Downe: All the Canadian private sector stations did the same coverage as the CBC. It was a very important story, for not only the estimated 40,000 or 50,000 Canadians of Lebanese decent who were originally thought to want out and the 14,000 that actually came out, but back in Canada, friends and family were following the media closely. That is why I am interested in your response to my question.
Do you have any advice for the Canadian government about communications for the next crisis, which will come at any moment now?
Ms. Ormiston: Yes, indeed it will. Again, this is not my expertise, senator. I am a reporter and a correspondent. I can only suggest that we put a plan in place for evacuations of this kind, whether large or small and primarily a communications plan that can be put in place quickly. You can discuss whether that should involve DND in the early days for their expertise. It had the feeling of a very new experience, which, indeed, it was.
Senator Downe: I am most interested in the communications component. For example, you said your producer called you from Canada as soon as you got off the plan. Your telecommunication devices, computers, Blackberry and whatnot, would have worked.
Would it have been easier to do your job when there was confusion on the ground, which is understandable, if Ottawa had a communications-coordination centre that identified the reporters in the field and communicated directly to them? In this case, you would have learned the necessary information to relate back to Canada.
Ms. Ormiston: Frankly, my experience has been that sometimes communications centres are helpful, and sometimes obstructionist. We report from countries where we are asked to get information from Ottawa. That was the case in Lebanon throughout these few weeks. When we needed information about Foreign Affairs movements or data, we were requested to deal with Ottawa, which is challenging under deadlines and not effective all the time. Yes, a communications system probably would help.
I do not think it is Foreign Affairs' role to make my job easier. I think, for the people involved and the people we are communicating to, in that case on a live basis — we are doing live reports as we are waiting for these ships — it would have been beneficial to the families, as you suggest, to figure out where these people were. They were on the high seas in 40-degree temperatures. The situation on that first ship was quite desperate. I am not sure that all Canadians appreciated that it was a difficult situation.
The Chairman: Before I call on Senator Di Nino, I want to be clear. Did you indicate earlier that you did go into Beirut on a French ship at some point in the cycle?
Ms. Ormiston: Yes.
The Chairman: After Larnaca?
Ms. Ormiston: Yes. I arrived in Larnaca. The Prime Minister and I arrived Wednesday night, I believe, and we left Saturday night on a French ship to Beirut.
The Chairman: Are you uncomfortable answering questions about what you saw in Beirut with respect to the dispatch of Canadians?
Ms. Ormiston: No.
The Chairman: Thank you for that.
Senator Di Nino: Mr. Chairman, first, I wish to congratulate you for inviting Ms. Ormiston here today. Her experiences in Lebanon and Cyprus will be useful information for this committee. I would hope that you may want to consider the same thing about her experience in Afghanistan at some time in the future, which is a much wider and longer lasting story.
Ms. Ormiston, I want to follow up on the question of communication. Were you ever stonewalled or denied information? Did you feel that Canadian officials were not giving information to you?
Ms. Ormiston: I think one of the natural questions a reporter would have on that day and in the 48 hours that we spent at that port was where and what is the Prime Minister doing. It was difficult to get that information.
Senator Di Nino: That would be security for the Prime Minister, obviously. I am talking about the actual process of evacuation, et cetera. Were the people, to the degree that they were able, or that they knew themselves, forthcoming with you?
Ms. Ormiston: I would not describe it as stonewalling or spinning. I think there was confusion, and I think the people on the ground did not have accurate information. They were trying to deal with our demands and the demands of the evacuees, not really knowing what was up.
Senator Di Nino: I think you were fair enough to describe the situation as chaotic in the sense that you are in a war zone, so this is to be expected. You have described quite accurately, what happened that first day.
I am interested in your experience on the third, fourth, and fifth days, and how much that may have changed by the time control was established. I am interested in anything that you learned from the evacuees and the stories that they were telling and how they saw this whole exercise.
Ms. Ormiston: It changed a lot in the first two weeks of the evacuation process. For the evacuees, what changed the most was how Foreign Affairs communicated with them. If you recall, there was a time when it seemed that Foreign Affairs was trying to contact people in Lebanon and say, ``Come to the port.'' Over time, the general message came out, as the conflict worsened, really, as, ``Do not wait for us to contact you directly; just show up.'' Also, ``We are going to spread out our evacuation from Beirut to Tyre down in the south. We will send a ship in there.'' It was a much broader communication. In a way, you might say it was less efficient, but actually the general call went out. It was a bit easier for people, because prior to that it was sort of, ``If you are called, you can go, but if you are not called, can you go?'' Some of these people were travelling on roads in the Bekaa Valley and places like that, which were very dangerous. That call was important. Should you or should you not go? Yes, it improved dramatically. The last boat I covered was the last scheduled boat out, two and a half weeks after the evacuation began. By that time, it was a very well-oiled procedure. People knew they were to show up, they were on that manifest, they were on that boat, and they knew when they would be leaving.
Senator Di Nino: I wondered how the choice of those who would join the Prime Minister was made. In your professional capacity, did you ever find out how those choices were made?
Ms. Ormiston: No, that information was not available to us. Very little information about the Prime Minister's trip, his time in Larnaca and his communication was available to us. I do know that originally 100 were supposed to travel home with him, and only 63 did. I do not know the reason for that change in passengers.
Senator De Bané: Were you inclined to compare the Canadian operations to those of other countries?
Ms. Ormiston: Yes, of course.
Senator De Bané: What was your overall impression?
Ms. Ormiston: Although I did not spend a great deal of time examining the American or the French evacuations, my overall impression was that we were later to start, when the situation was, perhaps, more desperate.
I arrived six days after the conflict started with the bombing of the airport but I believe that several countries already had their citizens on the way out by then. The pressure was on for Canadian passport holders and they wondered what to do.
As well, there was some coordination between countries as the conflict continued. For example, Canada sent a ship to Tyre about two weeks after the first evacuation and expected it to be full of Canadian passport holders when, in fact, very few Canadians showed up; therefore, the ship took on other nationalities.
Senator De Bané: I have asked other witnesses whether this was essentially an issue of logistics and whether our military are not better trained than our diplomats for such operations. I asked whether the matter should have been transferred immediately to the experts in such large-scale operations. Of course, officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs said that, no, they were in charge. Of course, they relied on several federal departments but the department in charge of coordinating the effort was Foreign Affairs. I am not sure the department is designed to put such a large-scale operation into motion.
As you know, Ottawa has a permanent agency that deals with disasters within Canada. In today's global village, we have 50,000 people holding Canadian passports in Greece, 300,000 in Hong Kong, over 100,000 in the U.S., and many more in other countries.
Could not that same Ottawa agency prepare appropriate measures for an emergency abroad so that Canada's effort is more timely and in keeping with that of other countries?
Ms. Ormiston: I cannot comment on the emergency preparedness organization in Ottawa because I do not know enough about it. It is a worthy question for this group to ask on the roles of Foreign Affairs and DND in such a situation. Of course, you can appreciate that you have heard much more than I have heard on the logistics leading up to the decision to evacuate and how long it took to put into motion. When we transferred in Paris to the Larnaca flight, half our comrades were DND officials coming in at the same time. This was very last minute. You have to actually get the people there once you have made the decision. If there were some way to pre-empt that movement of people and get them in faster, then perhaps it would be worthy of this committee's consideration.
Senator De Bané: Ms. Ormiston, did you have occasion to meet and talk to some of the people coming from Southern Lebanon when you were in Beirut?
Ms. Ormiston: I was in Southern Lebanon for a traumatic weekend. I spent several days on the ground in Tyre. People were traumatized; there is no question. It was completely unsafe to travel on the roads because you had absolutely no idea of the potential for some kind of air strike or accident or something to break out when travelling on those roads.
Senator De Bané: It was a good idea for the Department of Foreign Affairs to send a ship to Tyre.
Ms. Ormiston: It was a good idea but I am confused as to why there were not more people. All of us were confused as to why more people did not take advantage of the ship. The question was: Did that ship arrive too late? Had those people somehow made their way to Beirut? Did they not want to move from the south, even around Tyre? To travel to Tyre from some of the villages further south and closer to the border was extremely dangerous. Maybe those people simply could not move along the roads to Tyre or maybe the demand just was not there. Perhaps those who had left had decided to stay and those who wanted to go had made the trip to Beirut earlier.
Senator Andreychuk: Ms. Ormiston, from a reporter's perspective, have you thought of some of the policy implications? One fact is that Canadians do not have to register at the embassy when they enter a foreign country, although the practice is encouraged. Today, we have the technology to inform travellers of health alerts, political instability, et cetera. People who travel have a responsibility to be aware of where they are going and what is happening in the host country.
In this instance, it seemed that the many people who had not registered with the embassy registered once the conflict started. You said that the conflict came in an instant but instability already existed in that region, without question.
Ms. Ormiston: Yes, of course.
Senator Andreychuk: Then, actual fighting broke out and people then tried to get on the embassy list. Some names were put on those lists by callers, perhaps a relative or friend, from Canada, I was told.
Ms. Ormiston: Yes, that happened.
Senator Andreychuk: In that way, people were assured that the embassy had their names and knew they were in the region. The dilemma is to what extent can a Canadian government department or the military get involved to know how many people, what services and when?
We need to contemplate all kinds of disasters and movements. Were there discussions about whether those who were registered should receive preference? Was it simply a case of people who had identified themselves as Canadian would have the same rights to board those first ships? Were there any discussions about responsibility from the other end?
Ms. Ormiston: By virtue of having this committee, we all understand that this crisis provoked questions about the instability of the world and how migrant we are, whether living or travelling. It is not the travellers as much as it is the people living in these countries who might not think about registering. There was very little known about the rights of Canadians in another country when a crisis happens, and I am not sure that we have clarified that yet.
For example, we journalists were not sure whether we had a right to be helped out if we got into trouble in Lebanon. The issue of rights is a grey area. We all face these situations because we travel more, live in so many more places and have so many more dual citizens. It is probably a good thing for an information campaign to inform people of their rights. This evacuation raised questions of payment and whether evacuees would be required to pay? No, they would not have to pay. Would that happen the next time? Should they be required to pay from safe points such as Larnaca or Turkey, back to Canada? I believe that the greatest cost of the evacuation was airfares. Thus, lessons learned and be forewarned. Why not be clearer about information on how we can live more safely in these countries.
Senator Andreychuk: What struck me was the horrific problem that we faced, and it was unfolding — how big was it, how many people really needed to get out? Then we heard, after the cessation of the hostilities when it looked like it would be more stable, about the return.
We also work in these countries, both in a development sense and a United Nations sense. Did you find out what Canada was doing at that point, on a bilateral or in a multilateral way, to support those who did not have the means to evacuate?
We have been concentrating on Canada's responsibility for Canadians. What is Canada's responsibility in a war zone in which we have had contact and some influence?
Ms. Ormiston: I do not feel equipped to answer that very credibly. I did do stories about the challenges involved in getting food aid into the south.
I will not forget the morning the four UN observers were killed at their observation post. The head of WFP told me that 10 of his drivers quit that day. When I asked why, he said their reasoning was that if we could not protect our own UN people, why should they take a chance and drive in that area. It was a vivid example of how difficult it is to move aid in a war zone.
In terms of what Canada was doing directly, I do not feel equipped to answer that question. However, some of the other things that you posed about numbers of dual citizens, who is where and how many people, I have not been able to find answers to those questions six months later and I have done some digging for answers.
Senator Mahovlich: You are speaking of dual citizens. I was amazed to learn that there were more Canadians in Lebanon than there were Americans. I think there are more Canadians with dual citizenship in Lebanon than any other country. Is that correct?
Ms. Ormiston: I cannot answer that reliably. I think you are not far from the truth. History will show there is quite a link between Lebanon and Canada.
Senator Mahovlich: Maybe we were not aware of that and that is why we had difficulty getting all the Canadians out. We underestimated how many of us were there.
Ms. Ormiston: I think you need to put into perspective, as well, that if there were 40,000 Canadian passport holders in Lebanon, only 15,000 chose to leave.
Senator Mahovlich: That is right. Did you speak to any of those who decided not to leave?
Ms. Ormiston: Yes, I spoke directly to some who had come for holidays and had decided to stay. There were large areas of that country that were relatively stable compared to the south and the southern suburbs.
I remember speaking to a family from Toronto stuck at the Syrian border in a small town where the road had been bombed. They could not get out, but they were reasonably content that they were better there than travelling out. I think that was the motivation for some people.
Senator Mahovlich: Was the border with Israel dangerous?
Ms. Ormiston: Hugely.
Senator Mahovlich: I opened up a hockey rink on the border and the Lebanese would play there. Matulla was the name of the town.
Ms. Ormiston: It is a dangerous area.
The Chairman: Before I call on Senator Stollery, I want to ask one question, about the marshalling area in the port of Beirut.
It is my understanding that the ordinary forces of the Lebanese army were providing some measure of security in the region. We asked Canadian Armed Forces personnel about rules of engagement or plans in the event of hostilities breaking out in a context where, either by virtue of a sin of omission or commission on the part of Hezbollah or the Israelis, the marshalling area became problematic or unsafe.
Did you have any sense of that on the ground? Did that marshalling area appear to you as quite safe and secure, by virtue of perhaps unspoken agreements between all the parties?
Ms. Ormiston: That is a good question. I am wracking my brain to remember the security going in and out of there. I do not remember feeling threatened by it at all. There was no sense, as a journalist, of oh, my gosh, there are a whole bunch of people here who are sitting ducks.
There was a long drive getting into this area with several barricades. There was a space between traffic and getting into this area. What I do recall, though, is there was a problem with exposure in the first few days, when people were lined up. You would drive by on the main street past where they were lined up to get into the marshalling area to get on those boats. It was hot and they were standing for hours. This perhaps could have been mitigated somehow. There was no cover on this cement road where they were lined up. It seems a simple thing, but it may have prevented some distress.
Senator Stollery: I do not have very many specific questions. It has always seemed to me that the thing came up very quickly, out of nowhere, and naturally there will be a lot of confusion and people running around in circles trying to figure out how to get out of the place where the bombs are going off.
I live in downtown Toronto, which is a very cosmopolitan area. People say that if people have dual citizenship, is it our responsibility to save them while they are living elsewhere and not paying taxes here? This is what people say; it is not what I say, but that is what they say.
I guess everyone was a little surprised at the numbers. I have been in Lebanon and southern Lebanon a few times, but I never thought of it. However, I suppose it is not unusual if you looked at Portugal — all the Canadian Portuguese that go home for holidays and the Canadians with Portuguese passports, who retire to Portugal or to the Azores — or the Canadians who go to Florida; if someone started dropping bombs in Florida, there would be a lot of Canadians running for it.
It was obviously unexpected. I do not think registering would make a tuppence worth of difference. I have travelled a fair amount and I never register anywhere, even if I am staying for quite a while. I always figure I can look after myself better than a stranger can.
What would you say to the people who are critical of those dual Canadian citizens in Lebanon, who say why should we come and get you out?
Ms. Ormiston: It is not really my role to answer that question. That is a politician's and a policy-maker's role. I heard it, too. I heard it a lot when I came back; it was the topic of conversation. However, it is not my role to comment on policy or defend one position over another as a journalist. I have opinions, but I do not feel I should reasonably share them here.
I know this committee is not discussing dual citizenship — its value, merit, changes, whatever. I think it is an interesting national discussion about citizenship.
Senator Stollery: Yes, and I appreciate the fact that you are an observer; you are not there to make editorial comments on what has taken place.
Ms. Ormiston: It is difficult.
Senator Stollery: I appreciate that. I have the same argument with my neighbours regarding dual citizenship. We had quite an argument on the weekend over this subject.
We do not give people dual citizenship; we only give people Canadian citizenship. Other countries insist on retaining them as citizens. Canada does not give two citizenships. We went through this issue many years ago. There was a time when you became a Canadian citizen that you were not supposed to hold another citizenship. The problem was, it could not be enforced.
You will remember the war in Angola. We had thousands of Portuguese living in Canada and they would go to Portugal for a holiday and get snatched by the military for three years' military service in Angola because the Portuguese did not recognize them as Canadian citizens. It is not what we say; it is what they say.
It seems to me that, under the circumstances, DND and Foreign Affairs did not do a bad job. There was total confusion. I have seen a few of these things and everyone is running for it and they did not expect to get blasted. I could not understand why more people did not go to Syria through the Syrian frontier up to Turkey, but I guess a lot of people did. Did they?
Ms. Ormiston: That is how I got out. At that point it was unstable. People did not know which roads were stable. The road I took was bombed the day before I left; a bridge was taken out. One did not know.
I have done quite a bit of research on citizenship in the months since I have returned. It has not come to fruition yet; Afghanistan got in the way. I do have a good list of contacts, both in this country and other countries, who have thought deeply on this subject. If anything, what we learned from the Lebanese evacuation situation is that we are a nation, as many others are, of many multinational passport holders and it was an interesting observation that many of us had not thought about previously.
Senator Stollery: I think it is a function of the airplane. I am 71 years of age. I crossed the Atlantic four times by sea and the Pacific was 45 days when I did the Pacific. This business of moving back and forth by airplanes in a few hours did not exist. I think that is one of the reasons people can say: When my antecedents came to Canada, they were never going back, because it would take six months to get there.
The function of the jet airplane has undoubtedly exacerbated the situation.
Senator Di Nino: In response to Senator Stollery, you said you heard a lot about the issue of dual citizenship. Did you hear any of this during the time that you were in Cyprus or Lebanon? Did any of the discussions that you had with people deal with this issue at all?
Ms. Ormiston: Not a lot, no. I was getting missives from home that it was becoming a discussion here. On the Beirut side, there was discussion about passport holders and who had precedent on those first few ships, but I cannot comment reliably on that because I was not there.
Senator Di Nino: You did not hear from those who were being evacuated that some would have had preference or some should have had preference? That was not an issue that came up?
Ms. Ormiston: No, it did not come up.
Senator Corbin: You said that you left Lebanon through Syria. What was the attitude of Syrian authorities vis-à-vis refugees generally?
Ms. Ormiston: Again, I am sorry. I have to stick to what I know and I do not know the answer to that question. We were held up at the border, but we were not refugees; we were passing through. I do not know. You know now that the Syrian refugee issue is about Iraqis, not Lebanese. I cannot tell you that.
Senator Corbin: I thought I saw some clips of refugees walking through the Syrian border and going up the street without being hassled or stopped. That is the impression I remember.
Ms. Ormiston: I cannot comment on that at all. I certainly did not get quick passage.
Senator Corbin: Were you in Turkey at the receiving end?
Ms. Ormiston: I was not in Turkey, no.
Senator Corbin: Did you hear anything about that generally? One official said that the reception was quite good.
Ms. Ormiston: No, I did not. You have to appreciate that when we are reporting from these places, we are focused on where we are and it is a bit of a tunnel vision for a while until we come up for air and see what our colleagues are doing. Adrienne Arsenault was in Turkey and I do not recall what the nature of her reporting was at that time.
Senator Downe: I want to revisit some of the earlier comments on citizenship. Although I am unsure of the basis of the figures, we have learned that there is an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 Canadians of Lebanese descent in Lebanon. There is a difference of 10,000 persons in the estimated numbers. The estimates could, in fact, be wrong or could be, as our witness has said today, people stayed where they were, assuming it was safer to stay than to go. That could explain why 14,000 or 15,000 came out. The other possibility is that everyone came out and the estimates were wrong.
I think what Canadians are concerned about is the amount of attachment to Canada. Senator Stollery talked about cosmopolitan Toronto. I cannot compete with that, coming from Charlottetown. A large number of Canadians of Lebanese descent in Charlottetown have made tremendous contributions, not only to Prince Edward Island but to Canada, and many of them return in the summer because they have relatives there. It could have been the time of year that we caught so many at one point.
I think the concern Canadians have with citizenship is the contribution people make to the country and not that they have citizenship in another country. Are they contributing to taxes, pension contributions and so on? That may be an area of concern that this committee or another may want to look at another time.
Ms. Ormiston: I think that is part of this debate. I have interviewed four or five experts on citizenship who will give you their answer about what citizenship means. It is really interesting to talk to these people on both sides of this issue.
I do not know who arrived at the numbers of 40,000 or 50,000. I do not know who came up with the number 15,000 who went back after the evacuation. I have searched high and low. I cannot source that number; I would be delighted to find out.
Senator Downe: You probably cannot source it for the same reason we do not know if there were 40,000 or 50,000 originally because people are not required to register; we have no way of knowing.
The Chairman: Colleagues, I do not have any other members of the committee who wish to ask questions, so with your permission I will express our thanks and appreciation to Ms. Ormiston for joining us.
Ms. Ormiston: Thank you for inviting me.
The Chairman: The frankness and clarity of your responses is a model for us all and I am sure I speak for the entire committee when I say that whatever else might be said on occasion about the CBC, the professionalism and focus of your own performance in Lebanon, for those of us watching, was appreciated.
The committee adjourned.