ristian Paauwe couldn't feel sorry for himself when the massive earthquake and tsunami smashed his adopted hometown of Sendai in the northeast of Japan last week. He and his wife and infant daughter were badly shaken, but survived otherwise unscathed when so many others hadn’t.

When he did start to feel a little hard done by was when other countries – including the United States, France, Germany, Finland, China, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand – started sending buses to pick up their nationals trapped in the tsunami zone. But for a week no one came for Mr. Paauwe, his family or the other Canadians in Sendai.