Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper (second left) and Prime Minister Bruce Golding (second right) meet members of the Jamaica-Canadian Diaspora after bilateral talks and the signing of a memorandum of understanding for Canada to provide CDN$18 million (J$1.3 billion) over the next four years to finance the Justice Undertakings for Social Transformation programme at Jamaica House yesterday. Harper was concluding an official visit to the island. - Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer

Local and Canadian officials have described the two-day official visit of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a success despite unexpected circumstances which forced a cancellation of some engagements.

Harper arrived in the island Sunday night, shortly before a 21-year-old man hijacked a Canadian plane around 160 passengers and crew aboard.

As the hijacking ended Monday morning, Harper rushed to Montego Bay to comfort Canadian citizens who had endured the ordeal before facing the local and international media with Jamaica's Prime Minister Bruce Golding.

Plans abandoned

This caused the abandonment of plans for the Canadian Prime Minister to meet with Governor General Dr Patrick Allen and Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller, but did not prevent his address to a joint sitting of Parliament Monday afternoon.

Before leaving the island yesterday, Harper signed a memorandum of understanding for Canada to provide CDN$18 million (J$1.3 billion) over the next four years to finance the Justice Undertakings for Social Transformation (JUST) programme.

This is part of efforts to reform the justice system and Golding welcomed the move.

"The justice reform programme is important (but) so often in the exigencies of fiscal constraints, gets deprioritised; so often we feel that there are more pressing matters that need to attract our attention. It is particularly pleasing to note the particular interest that the Canadian government has taken," Golding said during a media briefing, addressed by the two leaders and held at Jamaica House.

"The funds are intended for capacity building," he added. "There are provisions for training draftsmen as there is a bottleneck in our legislative process. We have to recruit our judges ourselves and provide the systems and the processes that will enable them to function."

Canadian commitment

For Harper, financing the JUST programme was one concrete sign of Canada's commitment to Jamaica, but he said other measures would also be implemented.

"Canada recognises that Jamaica faces difficult challenges related to crime and security. You are not alone. Guns, drugs, gangs are problems in both our countries, indeed across the hemisphere and around the world," Harper said as he promised assistance to deal with these threats.

He also promised to support Jamaica in its push to have some of the additional money available to international financial institutions channelled to middle-income countries such as Jamaica.

"The intention of Canada and the intention of most leaders of the G-20 is to ensure that as we put these additional funds into these institutions to fight the recession, no gaps are left in the international financial system," Harper said.

arthur.hall@gleanerjm.com