Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said Friday that the surprising escalation of the crisis in the Middle East had made it difficult to plan the evacuation of Canadians from Lebanon.

Speaking to reporters in Ottawa, MacKay again defended the government's response in getting Canadians out of Beirut, indicating that there was competition among countries for available ships, with many of them not normally intended for transporting people.

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay discusses the crisis in Lebanon on Friday.
(CBC)

"We are half a world away," he said. "We have no military assets to speak of in the region, as do other countries. We don't have the ability to load up 5,000 people on an aircraft carrier.

"I would suggest there was no one who foresaw how quickly this crisis was going to escalate," he added.

The rescue effort slowed considerably on Friday, according to Foreign Affairs department officials, with 747 people taken out of Lebanon aboard chartered ships, half the number removed Thursday.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his wife, Laureen, lower right, speak to passengers as they disembark at the Ottawa airport Friday morning.
(Jake Wright/Canadian Press)

The officials said some of the ships chartered by Canada were taken away by other countries that paid more for them.

"When this operation began, we took a decision to contract ships for a certain number of days," one official said, speaking to the Canadian Press on condition of anonymity.

"That means some of the ships we may have used may have been picked up by others. It's not like we have a flotilla of ships on standby."

Lebanese Canadian evacuee Siham Kovtas, right, is over come with emotion after arriving at Pierre Elliot Trudeau aiport in Montreal on Friday.
(Ryan Remiorz/ Canadian Press)

Officials added that two large additional ships had been secured for the evacuation operation from Saturday onward.  Together, the two vessels can carry almost 1,700 people, the official said.

Work is continuing on a plan to help Canadians leave south Lebanon, the officials said, where Israeli troops seem poised for a ground invasion and 10 days of Israeli attacks have left many dead and injured.

'Good spirits, considering'

Earlier, MacKay helped greet nearly 100 Canadians who arrived in Ottawa Friday from Cyprus aboard Prime Minister Stephen Harper's airplane after fleeing the strife-torn country.

The prime minister's military Airbus landed at 4 a.m. ET at the Ottawa airport. It carried the evacuees from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, where they landed after enduring what they described as a gruelling journey by sea from Beirut.

The prime minister described the trip as a typical flight across the Atlantic Ocean and said the evacuees seemed to be in good spirits, given their hastily arranged departure and uncomfortable sea journey.

"It was very quiet," Harper said. "Mostly people were very tired. They were actually in very good spirits, considering.

"The kids, of course, went to sleep like babies the whole way, but most people rested and it's kind of like a normal, long transcontinental voyage."

Harper said he believed the trip gave the evacuees a measure of relief and the government a measure of satisfaction.

"A lot of people were very grateful," he said.

Following a trip to Europe and Russia for a G8 summit, Harper diverted his aircraft from Paris to Cyprus on Wednesday to help in the evacuation.

Meanwhile, flights carrying evacuees started arriving at Montreal and Toronto on Friday.

Charlie Musoka, emergencies officer with the Canadian Red Cross, told CBC News the organization would be helping to provide food, temporary shelter and counselling assistance to those returning.

Anger lingers

Some of the evacuees said they were happy to be home. However, others said they were still angry after experiencing long waits, confusion, delays and lack of information from the Canadian Embassy in Beirut and a harrowing trip by ship from Lebanon to Cyprus. Canadians had complained of no food, water or medical help on board the ship.

Rima Saab, 36, fled the Lebanese tourist town of Broummana with her four-month-old twins, while her husband, who works for the United Nations, stayed behind.

Speaking at the airport, Saab said she was grateful to be back on Canadian soil. "There's nothing like this feeling," she said.

But Liliane El-Helou said she gave Harper a list of complaints about the service provided by Canadian Embassy officials, including the fact that the embassy in Beirut was closed on the weekend.

"I thought by being late maybe they were working on a very effective evacuation. It was a disaster. We were panicking," she said.

El-Helou said she was grateful for the comfort provided on the flight home, but said the government needs to become better organized in Lebanon. She said Harper told her to outline her concerns in an e-mail to the federal government.

International efforts

Other countries have removed far more of their nationals from Lebanon than Canada.

On Friday alone, 4,400 Americans escaped by sea and air in a big operation organized by the U.S. military.

That's the largest single day total so far as foreign nationals flee Israeli attacks on Hezbollah and other targets in Lebanon. Eight American naval vessels are involved, including the helicopter carrier Iwo Jima.

France has rescued some 3,000 of its citizens, largely in chartered ships, and most are already back in Paris.

Sweden is running one of the most highly praised evacuation efforts, and by Friday it had removed more than 6,000 Swedish citizens from Lebanon. More than 5,000 Danes have been taken out by their government.

Cyprus, where many of the foreign nationals are first taken after leaving Lebanon, is appealing for help from the international community to deal with the massive influx of people. 

With files from the Canadian Press