Canada wants lead in Haiti reconstruction

Canada is pressuring Haiti's prime minister to give it a leading role in reconstruction efforts to deal with the devastation from the Jan. 12 earthquake.

Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Marc Bellerive met with Ambassador Gilles Rivard at the Canadian Embassy, and Rivard raised a number of issues on Ottawa's behalf.

"What I am trying to get from the prime minister is that Canada has the lead on a certain number of things," Rivard told reporters.

He said Canada was seeking assurances it would take charge of a project to build temporary buildings to house displaced Haitian ministries. Canada also wants responsibility for assigning experts to help with reconstruction.

Bellerive is due in Montreal on Monday for meetings aimed at organizing a larger donors conference on Haiti's future.

"For him it's important that Haiti remains on the map, and this is the kind of thing that will help him to make sure that the tragedy will remain in the mind of all," Rivard said.

The international aid effort is struggling to reach the estimated 2 million Haitians in need of food.

Bellerive blamed the slow pace of emergency distribution on the sudden influx of supplies that failed to take into account Haiti's limited ability to co-ordinate such a massive operation.

"The spontaneity of this aid is one of the sources of the problem of distributing this aid in certain corners of the country as well as the capital," he said before meeting Rivard. "We didn't really know what was in the airplanes, which created problems for prioritizing landings."

In some cases, vital supplies had to sit on the tarmac for days while authorities tried to organize the necessary equipment to offload and transport them.

Distribution was complicated by the more than 280 informal sites, including parks, a golf course and soccer stadium, where survivors have settled, Bellerive said.