Canada and refugees
Re: Refugee policy may be ' testing limits’, Feb. 21
Our government has taken advantage of the generous and humanitarian sentiments of most Canadians to promote its refugee policy.
It is therefore surprising that as many as 40 per cent of Canadians do not approve.
Perhaps many now realize that the government has avoided the issue of the billions of dollars their policy is costing while exercising fiscal restraint in helping the needy in our society.
The refugees are being brought here not to provide refuge but as permanent residents. The core of our immigration policy is to provide our workforce with skills and abilities lacking or in short supply, but these new immigrants offer none of these and will require additional financial support.
Egregiously unjustified is the fact that these immigrants are provided with better housing and timely health care than many lowincome Canadians. Also, we have an unacceptably high unemployment rate of near 7 per cent , and it not been explained how large numbers of unskilled immigrants help improve this situation.
The government apparently feels it is better to use its limited resources to provide for refugees instead of needy Canadians and has not justified that the number it has taken in is not excessive. Harvey Kaplan, Thornhill, Ont.
Re: Islamophobia (whatever that term means); Has Now Given Way To Isl a mo phobiaPhobia, Feb .23
The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines phobia as an irrational, persistent fear of some thing or situation.
I am assuming, therefore, that one cannot be accused of Islamophobia if one can show that one’s fear of certain Islamic orthodoxies is rational. Vladimir Antonowych, Ottawa
Re: U.S. moves spur Montreal to become sanctuary city; ' Symbolic Motion’, Feb. 21
Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre is the latest trendy to jump on the sanctuary bandwagon. Several other cities in Canada are leaning that way or proclaimed as such.
Does this mean these mayors are to flout the federal government on the law of the land re immigration, illegal migrants etc?
If this is the case, Canadians ought to petition provincial and federal authorities to punish such behaviour through withholding of grants and other monetary t ransfers. In addition, charges should be laid against those officials who choose to disobey Canada’s laws relating to entry to Canada.
If Trump can do it, so can Canada. It is one of the positions that got him elected and Canada should not emulate the cultural and economic suicide that now prevails in much of Europe. Leigh U. Smith, Burnaby, B. C.