“I’m told that they have the appropriate connections by which to deliver aid on the ground,” Harper told reporters in Toronto.
The Ottawa-based group, Canadian Relief for Syria (CRS), is the Canadian representative of the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organizations. Founded in Paris, the union has gathered funds and support from Syrian doctors worldwide to help co-ordinate the movement of medical equipment and supplies to help beleaguered Syrians.
Questions were raised Monday about CRS because the group has yet to attain charitable status and has no record of previous projects.
But Harper defended aid to the group, saying he was advised “our officials have done due diligence on all the organizations to which we’ve given money.”
CRS was conceived late last year and incorporated in April by several Syrian Canadians to raise money to provide medical support for Syrians caught up in President Bashar Assad’s bloody suppression of a 17-month-long democratic uprising.
On the heels of a hastily organized visit to the troubled region last weekend, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird announced Saturday that Ottawa would give $6.5 million to Jordan to deal with Syrian refugees spilling across its borders, and another $2 million to CRS.
A statement issued on behalf of Baird and rookie International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino said it “will provide medical supplies for doctors and health-care providers within Syria’s borders. This will help provide better and more timely medical care for Syrian civilians who need it.”
In addition to Canadians, the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organizations is obtaining help from doctors from Britain, France, Switzerland, Germany and the United States. The union treats injured Syrians coming across the border from Syria, provides help for doctors working in Syria, raises humanitarian donations and smuggles medical supplies and field hospitals into Syria from nearby warehouses in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.
Baird was told about CRS by the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organizations during the Friends of Syria Summit in Paris last month, CRS Board Member Momtaz Almoussly told the Toronto Star.
“The Foreign Affairs department got an indication about the union and us and how we are working, and that’s how this initiative came about,” Almoussly explained.
He said CRS employs six staffers in Canada — including three doctors, two engineers and a manager, operating in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and London. Six more staffers are abroad — three on the Turkish border, another three on the Jordanian border.
CRS is working with START, Foreign Affair’s task force that co-ordinates Canadian government policy and action regarding foreign states in the midst of civil conflict, Almoussly added.
The terms of the $2-million aid offer require CRS to supply Ottawa in advance with a complete list of what medical equipment and supplies will be bought, who the suppliers are and how the equipment will be distributed.
Concerns about CRS flared Monday because Maclean’s magazine reported that the group has not yet achieved charitable status and is working with Human Concern International (HCI) to accept donations and issue charitable tax receipts.
That group was once infamously connected to Ahmed Said Khadr — an ally of Osama bin Laden — who ran HCI’s Pakistan operations, and was later killed in a gunfight in Pakistan.
HCI remains an active aid organization with charitable status in Canada. Several Syrian Canadians have encouraged the federal government to channel aid funds for Syria through HCI.
Questioned about CRS’s standing, Harper reiterated that it is government bureaucrats who “carefully research these groups to ensure they meet the needs of the government of Canada.”
Baird’s press secretary Rick Roth said in an email that government officials have assured that “no taxpayer funds will be provided to Human Concern International.”
“Canada is committed to delivering medical aid to Syrian civilians brutalized by the Assad regime,” wrote Roth. “The minister has directed his officials to exercise the necessary due diligence to ensure taxpayer dollars are used appropriately — for emergency relief in Syria.”
Almoussly of CRS told the Star it uses money for medical supplies only, and has no concerns about HCI even though “we didn’t know this story (about Khadr) when we began our relationship with HCI.”
The arrangement with HCI has allowed CRS to kick-start operations and to issue tax receipts.
“It’s a co-operative relationship,” he said. “When we started doing humanitarian work in Syria, we needed help from Human Concern International and Canadian Red Cross to help set up fundraising events and consultation on how to (operate as a non-profit) according to Canadian laws and regulations.”
Since beginning operations in late 2011, Canadian Relief for Syria has held two fundraisers in Montreal and two in Ottawa, raising a total of $590,000, he said. Tax receipts were issued by HCI.
CSR is in the process of applying to obtain charitable status itself but it takes considerable time, Almoussly said. “The injured (in Syria) can’t wait.”
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Les Whittington, Josh Tapper and Tonda MacCharles
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