On the Refugee Arguments in Canada
Sep. 5th, 2015 09:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dewlineI promised further comment in the wake of the previous posting. This one could take a while to work through, and for that I apologize in advance.
There is an argument underway on this subject, and it is an old one. Probably going back to at least Confederation and almost certainly going even further back. Alan Kurdi's death, as discovered on the shores of Bodrum, Turkey and the story surrounding his family has refocused that argument in Canada yet again.
For nearly a decade now - as those of you who read this weblog regularly know from my rants on other political topics - Canada has been governed by the Conservative Party under the leadership of Stephen Harper. Their position has long been what I would call less than charitable to people who arrive on Canada's shores seeking refugee status as a group in general. While praising our national capacity for generosity in public, they also continue to argue that we as a nation are too often taken for suckers. Therefore, with varying degrees of public fanfare, they've tightened up the rules for how people can get in as refugees in a number of ways.
Mr. Harper has also decided that as a nation we must participate in military operations in Syria and Iraq, focusing our attention on Daesh (or as Mr. Harper insists in his various semi-public speaking engagements, "ISIL", "ISIS" or "Islamic State"). Never mind the other bad actors on that particular field. He wants this particular group viewed as an existential threat to Canada. I am not convinced of Daesh having anywhere near the means to achieve that, the Prime Minister's attempts to link them to assorted crimes in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and on Parliament Hill notwithstanding.
The situation in Syria has been going to pieces for a while ever since the "Arab Spring". The Assad regime has its share of blame to shoulder for insisting that the Syrian people exist or not on the regime's terms and the Dignity Revolution be damned on both sides of the grave, as does Vladimir Putin's crew in Moskva for partially shielding a client state from the consequences of their actions in order to keep that client state as a client.
Daesh are a gang of opportunists. I have no love for them at all. Enough said on that point.
But, as mentioned, the situations with Syria and Canadian refugee law alike have been playing out for a while. There's been a continuing pushback by Canadian civil society groups against the changes in the latter by the Harper government, and I agree with the principles behind that pushback. There's been efforts by any number of private citizens and groups across the country to help Syrian refugees of most religious and ethnic allegiances find safer haven in Canada, in spite of the "instrictution" of those tighter rules.
Several have noted Citizenship and Immigration Canada haven't been forthcoming with lists of approved candidates for sponsorship from that region. The complaints were on record before young Alan Kurdi's remains washed up on that Turkish beach. I can remember at least one or two installments of CBC Radio's news program The Current and weekday news/phone-in show Ontario Today where the matter's come up for discussion, partly due to the recent anniversary of the airlift of over sixty thousand Vietnamese refugees to Canada.
Sixty thousand, probably more than that. My memory is cloudy on that point for now as it happened during my grade school years, and I apologize for that cloudiness also. Nonetheless, that airlift and the public support of those refugees was and remains impressive.
Many of us would like to help make such a feat happen again in our lifetimes to whatever degree possible.
My suspicion is that Mr. Harper and many of his fellow Conservatives - now fighting to be re-elected as the government as much as they are in the Syrian mess - would rather that not happen. My further suspicion is that somewhere in Citizenship and Immigration Canada due to the governance of this last decade, there was a quiet decision taken once again that, no matter what promises are publicly made by the Prime Minister, none is too many. We may never learn exactly which people in which offices, if my suspicion is correct. Even if the Conservatives are voted out.
At the least, we can see the minister officially responsible for that department getting grilled on a near-daily basis. It has been so since before the identity and the hoped-for destination of Kurdi's family became public knowledge.
The attempts to hold the government of the day accountable - whoever that government is, whatever the issues of the moment, whatever their strengths and failings - should ever continue. I fear the consequences if those efforts should ever stop.
As to the memory of the refugee dead?
I too hope their memory will be a blessing. To all humanity. Even though it is wreathed in pain right now for the living families they were forced, by circumstance or by misdeed, to leave behind.
There is an argument underway on this subject, and it is an old one. Probably going back to at least Confederation and almost certainly going even further back. Alan Kurdi's death, as discovered on the shores of Bodrum, Turkey and the story surrounding his family has refocused that argument in Canada yet again.
For nearly a decade now - as those of you who read this weblog regularly know from my rants on other political topics - Canada has been governed by the Conservative Party under the leadership of Stephen Harper. Their position has long been what I would call less than charitable to people who arrive on Canada's shores seeking refugee status as a group in general. While praising our national capacity for generosity in public, they also continue to argue that we as a nation are too often taken for suckers. Therefore, with varying degrees of public fanfare, they've tightened up the rules for how people can get in as refugees in a number of ways.
Mr. Harper has also decided that as a nation we must participate in military operations in Syria and Iraq, focusing our attention on Daesh (or as Mr. Harper insists in his various semi-public speaking engagements, "ISIL", "ISIS" or "Islamic State"). Never mind the other bad actors on that particular field. He wants this particular group viewed as an existential threat to Canada. I am not convinced of Daesh having anywhere near the means to achieve that, the Prime Minister's attempts to link them to assorted crimes in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and on Parliament Hill notwithstanding.
The situation in Syria has been going to pieces for a while ever since the "Arab Spring". The Assad regime has its share of blame to shoulder for insisting that the Syrian people exist or not on the regime's terms and the Dignity Revolution be damned on both sides of the grave, as does Vladimir Putin's crew in Moskva for partially shielding a client state from the consequences of their actions in order to keep that client state as a client.
Daesh are a gang of opportunists. I have no love for them at all. Enough said on that point.
But, as mentioned, the situations with Syria and Canadian refugee law alike have been playing out for a while. There's been a continuing pushback by Canadian civil society groups against the changes in the latter by the Harper government, and I agree with the principles behind that pushback. There's been efforts by any number of private citizens and groups across the country to help Syrian refugees of most religious and ethnic allegiances find safer haven in Canada, in spite of the "instrictution" of those tighter rules.
Several have noted Citizenship and Immigration Canada haven't been forthcoming with lists of approved candidates for sponsorship from that region. The complaints were on record before young Alan Kurdi's remains washed up on that Turkish beach. I can remember at least one or two installments of CBC Radio's news program The Current and weekday news/phone-in show Ontario Today where the matter's come up for discussion, partly due to the recent anniversary of the airlift of over sixty thousand Vietnamese refugees to Canada.
Sixty thousand, probably more than that. My memory is cloudy on that point for now as it happened during my grade school years, and I apologize for that cloudiness also. Nonetheless, that airlift and the public support of those refugees was and remains impressive.
Many of us would like to help make such a feat happen again in our lifetimes to whatever degree possible.
My suspicion is that Mr. Harper and many of his fellow Conservatives - now fighting to be re-elected as the government as much as they are in the Syrian mess - would rather that not happen. My further suspicion is that somewhere in Citizenship and Immigration Canada due to the governance of this last decade, there was a quiet decision taken once again that, no matter what promises are publicly made by the Prime Minister, none is too many. We may never learn exactly which people in which offices, if my suspicion is correct. Even if the Conservatives are voted out.
At the least, we can see the minister officially responsible for that department getting grilled on a near-daily basis. It has been so since before the identity and the hoped-for destination of Kurdi's family became public knowledge.
The attempts to hold the government of the day accountable - whoever that government is, whatever the issues of the moment, whatever their strengths and failings - should ever continue. I fear the consequences if those efforts should ever stop.
As to the memory of the refugee dead?
I too hope their memory will be a blessing. To all humanity. Even though it is wreathed in pain right now for the living families they were forced, by circumstance or by misdeed, to leave behind.
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no subject
Date: 2015-09-06 03:15 am (UTC)I doubt the refugee debate will end until after the election, when whatever party wins will promptly forget any promaces made. Sadly.
Though I wonder, couldn't we both streamline the refugee process and clean up Syria?
Send military transports, they can pick up refugees from from the camps AND drop off troops from Canada at the same time. Efficiancy at its finest.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-06 03:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-06 02:14 pm (UTC)