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Canadians have demonstrated an unsurpassed generosity in their response to Haiti's devastation. They have given more than $113-million in cash donations alone, an amount to be matched by Ottawa. As well, Canadian soldiers, police officers, NGO officials and countless volunteers are on the ground helping to stabilize the badly wounded nation.

Now there is one more thing Canada can do: immediately fall in line with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's anti-bribery convention. Canada signed the 1997 agreement aimed at stopping bribery abroad, a sordid practice that enriches wealthy exporting countries while dooming developing nations to dysfunction and hopelessness. But so far Canada has failed to live up to its commitments. Transparency International, an organization that monitors bribery, says Canada has "little or no enforcement" of the convention, though it is one of the largest exporting nations in the world.

A sticking point is Canada's reluctance to give its own courts the jurisdiction to hear cases in which Canadians are alleged to have committed bribery on foreign soil. Canadian courts can hear extraterritorial cases of child sexual exploitation, terrorism, the misuse of nuclear material, torture, war crimes and murder. But bribery, a comparably heinous crime but one that can enrich Canada's economy, has mysteriously not been added to the list.

Transparency International points out that, in the same time period when the most diligent signatories of the convention have investigated and prosecuted hundreds of cases of foreign bribery, Canada has dealt with exactly one.

Corruption and its consequences have been at the heart of Haiti's misery for too long. This is the precise moment to change that. In the very near future, government buildings, hospitals, schools, prisons, private homes, roads, airports and much more will need to be rebuilt. Foreign companies will be flooding Haiti's shores, competing to offer their services and expertise.

If Canada turns a blind eye to the potential for corruption, it will amount to complicity in Haiti's endless cycle of suffering. But by at last respecting its commitment to the OECD anti-bribery convention, Canada can take part in the reconstruction of Haiti's political culture, an even more lasting contribution than a set of new buildings.