Feds match Chinese, Burma aid donations Minister visits Scarborough to announce funding BY MIKE ADLER Inside Toronto August 14, 2008 03:58 PM Disasters struck Burma and China this year, wiping out villages in an instant and leaving millions of people homeless. But Canadians and their government responded swiftly, groups from the Chinese and Burmese communities and the Canadian Red Cross said this week. All were at Scarborough's Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto to hear International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda say her government matched $30 million raised for victims of the Sichuan earthquake and $11.6 million for cyclone relief in Burma. In all, Canada will spend $56.7 million to speed recovery from the two disasters, said Oda. "This, we believe, reflects the compassion of all Canadians." Victor Wong of the Chinese Canadian National Council said three months after the earthquake the building has just started. The catastrophes affected more than 46 million people and left despair in their wake, he said. Tin Maung Htoo, executive director of Canadian Friends of Burma, said Cyclone Nargis, which hit Htoo's isolated homeland just weeks before the earthquake, was the worst natural disaster Burma has ever faced. "In the middle of the night more than 100,000 men, women and children were taken away by a 10-foot wall of water and 200-kilometre-plus winds in their deep sleep," he said. Htoo, adding he knows families whose relatives in Burma are still missing, thanked the federal government for a special permit his group needed to send money into Burma. Getting disaster aid to Burma, also known as Myanmar, was difficult because of obstruction by the country's military regime. Canadian law does not normally allow for transfers of goods or money that can help the Burmese government in any way. The minister said Canada entrusted agencies such as the Red Cross to hand aid directly to victims of the disasters and not the governments of Burma or China. Asked about reports Burmese authorities had seized materials intended for cyclone refugees, Oda said she was assured Canada's aid goods would be flown to Bangkok, Thailand and transferred at the Burmese border to Red Cross volunteers who could distribute them in the stricken areas. Canada is supporting a total of 20 aid projects in China and Burma, all to be completed by next May, she added, Oda began the Thursday announcement by offering the country's condolences to the families of two Canadian aid workers killed days earlier in Afghanistan. Such people "demonstrate the strength of their courage and extent of compassion" by their work around the world, she said. http://www.insidetoronto.com/news/News/Scarborough/article/53662