Hurricane Sandy struck another heavy blow to Haiti on October 23, 24, 2012. At least 54 people died and dozens more are missing. Several tens of thousands of people were flooded out of their homes or earthquake survivor camps.

There are some 370,000 people stuck in appalling conditions in the camps while hundreds of thousands more have gone back to damaged homes or whatever other inadequate shelter they can find.

Canada’s media reports, and doesn’t report, on Sandy in Haiti

Canadian Ambassador satisfied with Martelly government's performance

Washington and Ottawa have worked closely together over the past decade in Haiti to further mutual goals, ranging from their backing of the 2004 coup d'état against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to support for key policies of the current government of President Joseph Michel Martelly.

Today, the U.S. and Canada are pushing hard for a Permanent Electoral Council that would further entrench the practices of excluding certain political parties from Haiti's electoral processes, and they are encouraging foreign investors to come to the country, particularly in the domains of mining (in the case of Canada) and assembly industries (the U.S.).

Haiti’s post-earthquake disaster is setting powerful social forces in motion towards change

Tectonic Shifts: Haiti After the Earthquake; editors Mark Schuller and Pablo Morales; Kumarian Press, 271 pp, January 2012

This review was first published in the August 2012 issue of NACLA (quarterly print journal and website).

Tectonic Shifts is a vital account of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The book is a collection of 46 articles and essays by leading Haitian and international activists, scholars and writers who are on the front lines of the struggle for meaningful relief and reconstruction.