Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin's ZENON purified water photo op

CFP ^ | January 21, 2005 | Judi McLeod

[MikeEdwards]

It was as bald as a message on the world’s biggest billboard–Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin swigging from a bottle of purified water in Kalumai, Sri Lanka. The photo op of a lifetime, eclipsed by free advertising for ZENON Environmental Inc. The water quenching the thirst of a Prime Minister was produced by the DART (Disaster Assistance Response Team) water purifier.

That’s the same DART that Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew said the government decided to send to the Sri Lankan region of Ampara because it is one way to get aid to Tamils as well as the majority Sinhalese. Make that aid to the Tamil Tigers that the Canadian government has stubbornly refused to add to its list of banned terrorists for two years.

DART detail cannot be blamed for this PR stunt. DART’s 200 Canadian military people are on the Sri Lankan scene not for photo ops or advertising water makers, but to aid the hapless tsunami victims.

On Tuesday alone, DART delivered some 35,000 litres of fresh water to people who survived the tsunamis.

Garth Pritchard, a Canadian documentary filmmaker covering the tsunami tragedy in Sri Lanka and reporting back to the Toronto Sun, called DART men and women heroes, and he’s right.

Pritchard lamented in a Sun column how Martin’s visit to the scene of the disaster was a "circus" and a weeklong "photo opportunity".

The picture that went over the photo wires of Martin swigging on a bottle of purified water was not done to promote DART. The water-swigging photo seems to be a plug for ZENON.

In 2004, ZENON Environmental was ranked as "Canada’s top Corporate Citizen by Corporate Knights, a business publication addressing corporate responsibility". . . . .

[Murtyo]

I story about a picture. WHERE'S THE PICTURE?

[NorthOf45]

I would think that this SHOULD royally piss off the military. Here is the pic the article may be referring to, or at least the same event ...