The Tribune

AFTER the ceremony – and the protests – of the start to CARICOM, yesterday saw delegates getting down to business.

While a lot of work was being done in different events, the eye was caught particularly by the words, and actions, of Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Mr Trudeau is attending the event as a special guest. He doesn’t have to be here. And he seems to mean business.

Already, Canada has been carrying out surveillance flights over Haiti to collect intelligence on gang activity.

Yesterday, Mr Trudeau followed that up by announcing the deployment of naval vessels to conduct surveillance and maintain a maritime presence off the Haitian coast.

There was also money put down, $1.8m in total, to strengthen border and maritime security in the Caribbean as he spoke of the need to tackle the issues of gun smuggling and human trafficking.

He said: “We’ve provided direct support to bolster the Haitian national police so that Haiti has the tools and support to solve this situation, including deploying surveillance aircraft and vital strategic security equipment and vehicles and additional delivery of emirates vehicles in the coming days.”

There was more, too, with more sanctions being imposed – two more people added to the list of 15 people said to have abused power to support criminal activity in Haiti.

That still falls a few steps short of the call for foreign military intervention issued by Haiti Prime Minister Ariel Henry – but it is a good sight more than has been seen so far in response to that call.

Our own Prime Minister, Philip “Brave” Davis, said that Mr Trudeau was “putting your money where your mouth is” and thanked him.

There is of course a double measure to that. Canada has taken these steps forward – the question that hangs in the air is “What is everyone else doing?”

Oddly enough, that’s a question that hangs over the other major debate – climate change.

For a long time, the criticism of the international political arena is that there has been a lot of talking about climate change which has not been matched by action. Mr Davis has in particular since taking office pushed for actual practical steps to ensure the nations most affected by climate change, including ours, are compensated by the nations who contribute most to the problem.

Again, Mr Trudeau had announcements on that front, with $44.8m in funding to go towards groups such as the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre and the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund.

When one considers the billions of dollars in damage suffered by The Bahamas in Hurricane Dorian – estimates there have ranged from $3bn to $8bn – then that $44.8m may seem like a drop in the rising ocean, but nor is there the pretence that this is all that is needed.

“You know better than anyone threats posed by powerful storms that are increasing in strength and frequency to the threats rising sea levels pose, climate change is here, and it is real,” he told government heads at the conference.

In both cases, these contributions are not enough on their own to deal with the whole problem, but they are forward steps that need to be matched – and more – by others.

Someone has to go first on Haiti. Canada seems to be taking those first steps.

The goal has to be to help Haiti. Not tell it what it needs. And that goal has to be the same for nations such as ours on the issue of climate change. Offer support, experience – and money to make things happen.

If this CARICOM conference is the tipping point to turn talk into action, then The Bahamas will have played its part. What we do next to follow Canada’s lead? That we shall see.