"While your article is about Canada considering following suit with countries like the Netherlands and the United Kingdom and air-dropping aid to Gaza, you do not bring any skepticism to the discussion around such a decision."
February 27, 2024
To:
Christian Paas-Lang, Journalist, CBC News
Nancy Waugh, Sr. Manager, CBC News
Dear Christian Paas-Lang and Nancy Waugh,
I am writing to express concerns about the article: “Canada investigating possibility of aid airdrop into Gaza, minister says,” published on February 24 on CBC News.
You write, “Canada is looking into playing a role in a possible airdrop of aid into Gaza, says International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen.”
While your article is about Canada considering following suit with countries like the Netherlands and the United Kingdom and air-dropping aid to Gaza, you do not bring any skepticism to the discussion around such a decision.
Your article does not raise a variety of issues connected to the solution of air-dropping aid, such as:
- The quantity that will be air-dropped
- The possible obstacles to air-dropping aid
- The comparison – volume-wise, and cost-wise – to truck deliveries
- The number of other ways Canada can send its aid more easily, starting by reconsidering the suspending of its funding to UNRWA
- Israel’s role in preventing aid trucks from reaching Gaza (and inflicting starvation, which is a war crime, on Gazans) and how Canada can exercise pressure to make sure that aid trucks can enter Gaza and effectively exercise its international obligation of preventing genocide
- Whether or not this is simply a marketing tactic to divert attention from Canada’s controversial (perhaps fatal) decision to end UNRWA funding.
- How this undermines Hussen’s previous arguments that UNRWA cuts would be compensated by increased funding to other international aid organizations which are not currently very present in Gaza.
I, therefore, ask you to add critical information about air-dropping aid to Gaza.
Similarly, you also write that “Canada is looking at the “possibility and feasibility” of doing the same as [France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom],” but only quote Hussen instead of giving voice and space to the many people who are critical of Canada’s current aid strategies vis-à-vis Gaza.
I, therefore, ask you to add a critical voice about air-dropping aid to Gaza.
I hope CBC will consider these suggestions and add a critical angle about Canada’s possible decision to air-dropping aid to Gaza.
Sincerely,
Fatima Haidar,
Media Analyst, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East