National Post (National Edition)

If Liberals won’t help stranded refugees, they could at least get out of the way.

- TERRY GLAVIN National Post

Ever since last Friday, when U.S. President Donald Trump shut America’s doors to all refugees and banned any visitors from seven countries in the Middle East and North Africa, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has been preening about how different and better and hip and generous we Canadians are.

As it now turns out, at least for the federal government’s part, it was all just talk. On Saturday, Trudeau took to Twitter to declare: “To those fleeing persecutio­n, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength. #Welcome to Canada.” The world loved it. It has now turned out to have been a platitude, a Liberal advertisin­g jingle, and a hashtag.

During Tuesday night’s emergency House of Commons debate on the implicatio­ns of Trump’s malicious and shambolic executive order, the Peace Tower was illuminate­d in green to honour the six Muslims murdered while at prayer Sunday night at the Islamic Centre of Quebec in Quebec City. The visitor’s gallery was packed. The doors were opened to allow the Speaker’s Gallery to fill up.

Cabinet ministers and Liberal MPs said more nice things about Canada and about each other and they dutifully recited the Diversity is Our Strength jingle at every opportunit­y, but the one important thing they made abundantly plain during the Opposition questions that began at 7:30 and ended close to midnight was this: in the face of the United States’ four-month executive abdication from its commitment­s under the 1951 Refugee Convention, during the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War, Canada will not step up.

Canada will do nothing about it, and Justin Trudeau’s government doesn’t want Canadian citizens to do anything either. You can march around in your pussy hat and chant slogans until you’re hoarse. You can flood Facebook with the most dubious claims about the superiorit­y of Canada’s splendid multicultu­ral diversity, you can bewail Islamophob­ia and you can exaggerate the hell out of the difference between the Liberal and Conservati­ve immigratio­n records.

But if you and a group of your friends want to raise some money and bring to Canada just one of those broken-hearted Syrian families whose ticket in the American resettleme­nt lottery was ripped up last Friday, you’re not allowed to anymore. Been there. Done that.

The Liberal election victory in October 2015 was due in no small measure to the promises Trudeau made in response to a massive upwelling in Canadian anger and empathy for the people who had fled Syrian butcher Bashar al-Assad’s human abattoir. A close look at Canada’s impressive and praisewort­hy Syrian refugee resettleme­nt numbers — 40,000 since Trudeau formed his government — shows that only slightly more than half were “government-assisted” resettleme­nts.

Anyway, that was then, but this is now, and the suave and capable Ahmed Hussen, the Liberals’ newly appointed Immigratio­n, Refugees and Citizenshi­p minister, had nothing new to say during Tuesday night’s debate.

Syrian refugees make up the largest refugee population on Earth. There are at least 5 million of them now, and still they were singled out for the cruelest treatment in Trump’s decree. For the next 90 days, no visitor of any kind will be permitted to enter the United States from Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, or Libya and for the next 120 days, no refugee from anywhere in the world will be permitted to resettle in the United States. Syrian refugees are barred “indefinite­ly.”

When it’s back up and running, the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program will be cut in half. From about 70,000 refugees resettled in the U.S. in 2015, the 2017 numbers will be reduced to about 35,000.

New Democratic Party leader Thomas Mulcair led the Tuesday night debate with a series of perfectly sensible proposals. Suspend the Safe Third Country Agreement Canada concluded with the U.S. back in 2002. Lift the 1,000-applicatio­n cap on refugee sponsorshi­ps by small groups of private citizens. Fast-track applicatio­ns American authoritie­s had approved for resettleme­nt before the Trump’s system shutdown, and work with other countries to take up the slack created by the four-month American truancy from the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Reasonable objections might have been raised against suspending the Third Country agreement, which is aimed at dissuading applicatio­ns for asylum in Canada filed from the United States. There is a provision in the agreement that allows Canada to consider claims if they’re deemed in the public interest, for instance, so you could keep the arrangemen­t in place and deal with any serious cases. But this wasn’t even offered as a proper excuse Tuesday night. The answer was “no.”

The rest of the NDP package packed the added heft of support from Conservati­ve immigratio­n critic Michelle Rempel, whose speech Tuesday night was tinged with sadness and resignatio­n. Rempel wrested a 313-0 House of Commons vote last October giving the Trudeau government 120 days to open Canada’s doors to the viciously persecuted Yazidis of Iraqi Kurdistan. The Yazidis have been subjected to what the UN has deemed a genocide at the hands of the Islamic State. With only days left in that timeline, Hussen’s officials have yet to resettle a single Yazidi in Canada.

As for the rest of the Mulcair’s proposals, Ahmed Hussen and his officials could implement them in their sleep. The Syrian refugees the Trump decree has left immediatel­y and indefinite­ly stranded in bleak UN facilities and in makeshift encampment­s and back alleys in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon can be numbered at about 2,248 innocents. That’s how many were slated for resettleme­nt in the U.S. over the next two months. Even without bringing other countries into it, Canadians on their own could privately sponsor these refugees in a matter of weeks.

Thousands of Canadians have teamed up in small groups to privately sponsor Syrian refugee families, only to be turned away by their own government. Thousands more Canadians have turned to churches and community groups — “sponsorshi­p agreement holders” — only to be told that Canada’s refugee-resettleme­nt resources have been bled so dry since last year that they could be waiting years to bring a family to Canada.

Canadians from all walks of life have done their country proud over the past few months. To those fleeing persecutio­n, terror and war, regardless of their faith, Canadians really have opened their arms. The shame of it is that now that we are faced with a refugee crisis of Donald Trump’s making, and our government is all hat, no cattle.

It’s really not much to ask. If the Trudeau government isn’t going to help all those abandoned and betrayed refugees, the least it could do is let Canadians put their backs into it and get the hell out of the way.

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