The Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) (French: Équipe d'intervention en cas de catastrophe (EICC)) is a rapidly deployable team of 200 Canadian Forces personnel. It provides assistance to disaster-affected regions for up to 40 days. DART's headquarters is located in Kingston, Ontario. DART was created by the Canadian government in 1996 in the aftermath of the inadequate response to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when Canada's aid arrived after the peak of a cholera epidemic. The government determined that it would be of the utmost importance in many disasters if it was able to rapidly deploy a group of people until long-term aid arrived. DART has an annual budget of , although during specific incidents the Parliament of Canada can choose to temporarily allocate millions of dollars to DART to fund their response effort. For example, Operation Torrent, the aid mission to Turkey in the wake of the 1999 earthquake which left 17,000 people dead, saw used by DART in the response.
Missions
The Canadian government decides whether or not to send DART after a request from a country or the United Nations. Typically, upon a request from the government of the affected country, the Canadian government will dispatch its four to seven-person Canadian Disaster Assessment Team (CDAT). The CDAT members are from Global Affairs Canada and the Department of National Defence (DND). For all humanitarian assistance/DART missions Global Affairs Canada is the lead department representing the Government of Canada. The CDAT will assess the situation and submit its recommendations back to the Government (of Canada), who will decide if the DART can or cannot be of assistance. If it agrees to provide assistance, it will dispatch an additional group of 12-19 personnel who form the Humanitarian Assistance Reconnaissance Team (HART) who will make preparations to receive the remainder of the team into the affected area.
Critiques
Although DART's goals may be well-intended there have been critiques of this program. It is costly, which comes with the nature of military intervention. Furthermore, although it does align with Canada's foreign policy of the three Ds (defence, diplomacy, and development) it does not help with the global health inequity.
Operation Central (Honduras), 1998
In October 1998, Hurricane Mitch, a category-5 hurricane, struck Central America over a period of three days. As a result, 6,000 people died and over a million were missing or made homeless. DART situated themselves in the middle of the Rio Aguan Valley, in north-central Honduras. Because there were many isolated communities that were connected only by then-broken roads and bridges, DART was supported by four CH-146 Griffon helicopters from Canadian Forces Base Petawawa. By the end of the mission in mid-December 1998, DART had delivered 250,000 pounds of food and medical supplies throughout the valley. They also produced thousands of litres of clean drinking water and chlorinated local wells supporting approximately 15,000 people. Working with the medical personnel in Honduras, DART treated about 7,500 patients for ailments such as respiratory infections, conjunctivitis, skin infections, diarrhoea, parasitic infections and intestinal infections. It also helped repair roads, bridges and electrical systems.
Operation Torrent (Turkey), 1999
DART responded to a 7.4-magnitude earthquake that hit north-western Turkey on August 17, 1999. DART was deployed on the following day and set up a camp in Serdivan, a suburb of Adapazarı, which had 180,000 people. During this mission, DART personnel assisted in cleaning up a school, restoring electricity and designing and constructing a tented camp which could hold 2,500 people. This camp also had washroom and shower facilities. DART treated 5,000 patients and produced 2.5 million litres of bulk water.
Operation Structure (Sri Lanka), 2004
DART responded to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that occurred on December 26, 2004. The reconnaissance team left for Colombo, Sri Lanka, on December 30, 2004. A commercial plane carried a reconnaissance crew with representatives from Foreign Affairs Canada (three), Canadian International Development Agency (two), Public Health Agency (one), and DART itself (six). Prime Minister Paul Martin announced his plans to send DART into the region on January 2, 2005. Four days later, a plane carrying 150 DART members departed for Ampara, Sri Lanka. On January 8, 2005, 50 more members arrived. Sri Lanka suffered tremendously as a result of the earthquake, the Canadian government stated that their relief efforts were to be concentrated there. They set up their main camp in a former sugar factory.