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A comment on Canada’s $6.9B Wildfire Is the Size of Delaware and Still Out of Control. Parent comment

Re:Canada’s $6.9B Wildfire Is the Size of Delaware and Still... by MichaelGG on Saturday June 04, 2016 @04:17AM (#11835485)
> The South Africans are here for diplomatic reasons more than anything

So it's just a Trudeau-like "diversity" hire or something? Not to say that in a mean way, just that they are not the most qualified and have only received minimal training.

I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't being praised as "South African government sees it as repaying a debt to the Canadian people for their support for the anti-apartheid struggle"[1]. Let's just call it an aid program and be done?

1: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/300-south-afric...

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Re:Canada’s $6.9B Wildfire Is the Size of Delaware and Still... by Kluny on Saturday June 04, 2016 @10:44AM (#11836495)
Yeah, they need experience and training, so they're here to get it.
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Re:Canada’s $6.9B Wildfire Is the Size of Delaware and Still... by MichaelGG on Saturday June 04, 2016 @05:43PM (#11838234)
They're also getting paid for it. I'm not against it, just annoyed how it's being published. The real story is "Canada gives South Africa over $2M, trains firefighters". Not "South Africa helps out Canada; pays back apartheid debt". It's shameful to spin it like that.
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Re:Canada’s $6.9B Wildfire Is the Size of Delaware and Still... by sintaxi on Sunday June 05, 2016 @08:59AM (#11840694)
I for one am very grateful they are here to help. Should be a clear win for both sides.
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Re:Canada’s $6.9B Wildfire Is the Size of Delaware and Still... by astrodust on Sunday June 05, 2016 @05:40PM (#11843268)
Talk about experience. That's got to be crazy for them.
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Re:Canada’s $6.9B Wildfire Is the Size of Delaware and Still... by rpgmaker on Saturday June 04, 2016 @12:57PM (#11836981)
> So it's just a Trudeau-like "diversity" hire or something?

Are you implying that they're all black because they're from South Africa?

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Re:Canada’s $6.9B Wildfire Is the Size of Delaware and Still... by MichaelGG on Saturday June 04, 2016 @02:26PM (#11837359)
Why wouldn't they be "diverse" (as in different) if they were white SAs? Though every picture and video seems to imply there's probably few to zero white firefighters that came over. But that might just be selective photography. (To be fair the pictures don't seem to show any women either, but the official number is around 60, or slightly greater than 20%.)
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