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Disaster Assistance Response Team  –  CASR Op-Ed  –  14 January 2010 Haitian Earthquake & Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team DART's label misleads us about the true strenths of this military unit Dianne DeMille,  CASR Editor – Op-Ed column at the invitation of the The Ottawa Citizen The Limits of DART In the aftermath of any major catastrophe, the Canadian Forces Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) is put on alert and begins preparing for potential deployment. With the scale of earthquake damage in Haiti, Canadians naturally wonder about DART's role in our response. The Minister of National Defence, Peter MacKay, is already fielding questions about DART 's response times. Mr. MacKay might well fluff the designations of  the Canadian Forces aircraft involved  in Haitian operations, [1]  but  the MND has otherwise explained  the limitations of DART deployments very well. First, the government of  Canada needed  to receive an official request  for aid and assistance from Haiti. In the midst of a disaster of such magnititude, formalities like these may seem odd. But  DART is a military organization.  Even if the intent is to render assistance, the uninvited arrival of  Canadian troops would constitute an invasion.  With that formal request for assistance in place, the  DART reconnaissance team was dispatched to Haiti  to assess the situation on the ground and determine  exactly which emergency equipment and supplies are  most urgently needed. Another transport aircraft will deploy tomorrow to begin delivering some of  the supplies and equipment required by DART. In the past, access to cargo aircraft large enought to ship DART gear has been a major issue. For Operation Plateau, the October 2005 Pakistan earthquake, DART required five flights by the largest transport aircraft in existence  – the enormous, six-engined Antonov An-225. As with the slightly smaller An-124s leased to transport DART after the 2005 tsunami, these huge aircraft were leased from civilian heavy-lift cargo firms.  This time, the Canadian Forces have new C-17 transport aircraft at their disposal and the distances involved are much smaller. [2] Having spent billions of  taxpayers' dollars buying those Boeing C-17  (or CC-177 Globemaster III as the Department of  National Defence call them) transport planes – and all of  their support equipment –  Mr. MacKay will make as much out the use of these aircraft as he can. By the standards of military transport missions, the job is not a taxing one and,  no doubt,  the Canadian Forces Globemasters will manage just fine.  Significantly, using military aircraft for DART ensures that comparatively rare civilian heavy- lift transport airplanes are available to fly in relief supplies for non-governmental aid agencies. So, official approvals are required to accept Canadian soldiers into disaster areas and civilian aid agencies are effectively in competition with DART for scarce resources like leased heavy- lift aircraft. Why then has the Canadian government chosen to deploy military personnel as its first responders to overseas disasters? The government's answer would be that only the military can respond quickly enough – indeed, that is the very reason DART was created in the first place. But does this explanation bear up? DART is certainly successful at what it does -- medical assistance, water purification, and the most basic infrastructure engineering – once on the ground. But, invariably, civilian disaster response teams are on-scene before military assistance arrives. Hurricane Katrina provides a case study. DART was not deployed because US military teams were available. But members of  Vancouver's Urban Search and Rescue team were in the New Orleans area the day after Katrina's Louisiana landfall, five days before US military personnel and long before vessels of the Canadian Navy and the Canadian Coast Guard began arriving off the US Gulf Coast.  DART provides vital assistance in emergencies.  Naturally we  regard direct medical assistance to the victims of a  disaster as  paramount, but  it is impossible to overstate the importance of  safe drinking water in any devastated area.  It is polluted water  that kills in the thousands. No civilian agencies have the ability  to match the Canadian Forces' containerized  'Reverse Osmosis Water Purification Units '.  Lives will be saved almost as soon as that  ROWPU is operational. DART is good at what it does and DART personnel are to be commended. But Canadians set themselves up for disappointment by insisting on regarding DART as our nation's emergency first-responders. Smaller, civilian teams have shown how rapidly they can respond to a major disaster. The Canadian government should drop the hyperbole around DART – the acronym itself is misleading. It suggests to Canadian citizens an ability to respond instantly, instead of setting up the conditions for an effective, life-sustaining effort – potable water, infrastructure, and  medical services. The Canadian government should support civilian disaster search and rescue teams as first responders – even for overseas disasters such as the earthquake in Haiti. Let DART focus on doing what only such well-organized, larger military units can accomplish. [1] The "CF-130" would be a fabulous beast indeed but the CF's Hercules is no fighter aircraft. [2] A 2,900 km flight from CFB Trenton to Haiti takes about 3 1/2 hours (with the C-17 cruising at 450 knots), less time than it takes to fly to Vancouver, another city waiting for the 'Big One'.