COLOUR-BLIND WELCOME

Re: the April 7 opinion piece by Chloe Walker, a graduating student in the Public Policy and Governance program at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, making the case for welcoming Ukrainian refugees to Canada.

It made sense, of course, and I believe, as Ms. Walker does, that we welcome refugees partly because it is the right thing to do, and partly because we can use the help they bring. Just think of the great chocolate business down the road from St. F.X.

The opinion piece also referred us to a troubling reflection on racial prejudice.

She noted that some Canadians oppose taking in immigrants, be they migrants or refugees, “primarily for racialized reasons.” It was a point well made, but I think it would be clearer had Ms. Walker written that some Canadians oppose immigrants who are not white and European.

There is likely some truth in the idea that people tend to be more welcoming to immigrants who look and sound like them, but I need to resist the temptation as a white, Western European immigrant to make the assumption that Canadians are essentially Western European white people. In thinking about refugees, I need, for the sake of my own spiritual wellbeing, to keep in mind that Canadians rooted in all the other parts of the human family are just as Canadian as I am, and are just as Canadian as, say, Brian Mulroney.

I agree with Ms. Walker that Canada needs to “reframe how this … is sold to the Canadian public.” We need to sell ourselves the truth that being white is not any part of the Canadian essence, whatever that essence is, and that welcoming migrants to Canada is about welcoming our relations, wherever they hail from.

As an aside, noting Ms. Walker’s reference to Russia using refugees as a weapon against NATO countries, I think Vladimir Putin’s success against them really consists in his having forced them to deal with increased inflation and simultaneously to increase defence spending by economically significant proportions.

Dermot Monaghan, Kingston