Disaster dilemma: who should pay when Canucks are stuck abroad?

When a devastating earthquake struck Nepal last month there were at least 388 Canadians registered as being in the country, though there were likely many more than that.

When an earthquake and tsunami struck Japan in March 2011, there were more than 4,000 Canadians registered and estimates that more than 11,000 were actually on the ground.

So, what happens when disaster strikes? Who is responsible for getting them home?

A new poll says more than half of Canadians believe the federal government has all or most of the responsibility for getting citizens out of a disaster zone.

But 38 per cent – almost one in five – felt the rescued should have to pay a portion of the cost, says a report by the Angus Reid Institute.

And only 16 per cent of survey respondents felt government is responsible for helping Canadians who have travelled to countries considered high-risk.

There is no set protocol for the evacuation of Canadian citizens from a disaster zone. It is a last resort, once personal and commercial options are exhausted.

“Consular responses are always tailored to a wide number of variables like circumstances, location, numbers of Canadians involved, etc.,” Francois LaSalle, a spokesman for International Affairs, tells Yahoo Canada News.

“There are many operational guidelines for our consular officials on how to deal with an emergency situation and respond to Canadian’s needs within the policies on our web site, but those are not set to specific situations….”

Five hundred Canadian citizens were evacuated from Southeast Asia following the 2004 tsunami that killed some 220,000 people, and 200 were evacuated from the Cote d’Ivoire when hostilities erupted in 2005.

By far, the largest crisis response required of Canadian officials in recent years was the 2006 outbreak of war between Israel and Lebanon.

Federal reviews were conducted following both the tsunami response and the evacuation of Canadian citizens from Lebanon.

Both noted the high expectations of Canadians for assistance overseas.

“Unfortunately, these expectations cannot always be satisfied,” says the parliamentary committee report on the Lebanese crisis.

While 11,000 Canadians had registered with the Canadian embassy in Beirut at the outbreak of hostilities, some 40,000 citizens were ultimately located in Lebanon. An estimated 14,300 were eventually evacuated.

An estimated 2.7 million Canadian citizens live overseas, 1.7 of them on a permanent basis, according to the parliamentary report.

The evacuation of Lebanon cost the federal government $94 million. Who should pay?

Ten per cent of Angus Reid respondents felt Canadians travelling abroad should cover the full cost of their evacuation; 38 per cent said they should cover a portion. Just one in five said travellers shouldn’t have to pay at all.

“A significant number – 30 per cent – say the answer to who should pay for the evacuation of Canadians ‘depends’ on the specific situation from which they’re being evacuated, or on other factors,” the poll report says.

“Perhaps surprisingly, 21 per cent of those who had traveled abroad for an extended period said evacuees should have to pay for the entire cost of their rescue, compared to just 10 per cent of the overall population who chose this response.”

More than 8,000 were killed and hundreds more are still missing in the wake of the April 25 earthquake in Nepal.

Seventy-one per cent of the Angus Reid forum members surveyed felt the federal government response has been about right. Another 21 per cent felt Canada had done too little and eight per cent, too much.

The institute polled 1,504 people who had signed up for their public opinion forum earlier this month.

Because the survey was conducted online, it does not have a margin of error. For comparison purposes, a traditional poll of that size would have a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.