Letters to the Editor:
Readers react to calls for opening our borders.
For over a hundred years the National Council of Jewish Women of Canada (NCJWC) has supported immigrants and refugees coming to Canada during and after the displacements of war.
At this terrible time, hundreds of thousands of refugees are risking their lives to escape intolerable situations, only to face the horrors of flight, human smugglers, and insecurity. They are unable to meet their basic human needs.
We urge all Canadians to do what they can to ensure the safety, dignity and well-being of these traumatized people.
Protocols do not take precedence over saving lives. Contact your elected representatives and urge them to make a difference. Contact non-governmental organizations, and find out how you can help. Spread awareness and encourage action.
We need to ensure that these refugees find a safe haven. We can be that haven.
Let’s make it happen.
SHARON ALLENTUCK President, National Council of Jewish Women of Canada
Re: Letting Syrians die, watching Syrians drown, Opinion, Sept. 3
Terry Glavin would have us believe that those who oppose military intervention in Syria are responsible for the refugee crisis in that country.
Contrary to what Glavin argues, this is a crisis largely caused by military intervention, the disastrous effects of which the refugees are fleeing.
Over the past 15 years, military interventions by the U.S. and its allies — including Canada — have destabilized the Middle East, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya, ripping the region apart and leaving misery in their wake.
Further such interventions in the region will only compound the humanitarian crisis there.
SID SHNIAD Surrey
Re: Canada rejected drowned boys, Sept. 3
The heartbreaking tragedy of the drowning refugee kids on the beaches of Turkey is a sign of things to come. We have to get used to it. On a planet that can only sustain a human population of two billion, the issue of how the world de-populates is what faces us now. Civil war, violence, starvation and death are in the near future for much of the earth’s population.
Canadians yammering for the Harper government to accept more refugees are really advocating for the government to override Canadians’ expressed wishes to keep our population down; look at our low birthrate.
Canada is already over-populated. Most countries are grossly, even obscenely, over-populated. Those advocating to accept more refugees are really advocating for increased destruction of the environment, increased consumption of scarce resources, increased death rates for wild animals, and increased assault on First Nations’ land, rights and resources.
The best we could do for countries such as Syria would be for the United Nations to take control and impose good government so people could stay at home and deal with their problems within their own cultural environment. This would involve a serious military intervention.
MALCOLM MCSPORRAN Vancouver
Opening the West’s borders to hundreds of thousands of refugees from dysfunctional societies isn’t a good idea and will only encourage more of them to risk their lives to go there. A much better solution is to create safe zones within or near refugees’ homelands where they can safely sit out wars and receive basic food, shelter, medical and education needs until things improve.
The economic and social costs would be significantly lower than integrating refugees and the employment and economic activity it would create in countries like Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, etc. would probably help stabilize them. The expertise, money and military capacity to do this exists. Why aren’t Europe, Canada, etc. using it?
PHIL CHUBB North Vancouver
Eighty per cent of the world’s refugees are hosted by developing countries. Only four years ago Syria hosted more refugees than any country in the world outside Pakistan and Iran. If this sounds shocking or nonsensical, the numbers come from the United Nations and have not been disputed.
Many of these refugees fleeing to Syria, Iran and Pakistan were from countries the West had spent hundreds of billions of dollars “improving,” such as Iraq. The West has been bombing Iraq for the better part of the last 24 years now. We can see what a “civilizing” effect it is having.
LINDA HALL Vancouver
We are all touched by this picture of a drowned child, but these people should not be leaving their homeland.
If this influx of migrants continues the European Union will have big problems ... are all these people screened for Jihadists in their midst? This migration must stop.
RICHARD O. JONES Abbotsford
Under normal conditions it would be unfair to criticize the Canadian government for ensuring prospective immigrants are properly vetted. There are times, though, when basic humanity should prevail and override protocol.
If we learn anything from the heart-rending images of masses of migrants attempting to find their way to Europe it is this: these unfortunates did not have the luxury of going from office to office to obtain visas or other documents: these are people whose houses were destroyed by bombs (some of them probably our own) and who had a pressing and desperate need to get away, to seek security and a welcoming heart somewhere else.
Normal rules here should not apply. Indeed, it would be gross unkindness to turn our backs on these people simply because they are not in possession of proper documents.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said last week that Canada will accept thousands of refugees. All Canadians, I think, will applaud him for that.
His offer, however, will do little good unless he acts promptly and abandons normal bureaucratic procedures.
One would expect, indeed, that he should act at least as quickly as he did when he ordered our air force to drop bombs in the same ravished part of the world many of the refugees are trying desperately to escape.
ERMES CULOS Ashcroft
Stephen Harper, along with a myriad of western leaders, struggle to explain their inept response to the tragedy unfolding on European borders as families risk their lives to escape the hell that their lives have become. Yet western leaders are largely responsible for the chaos in Iraq, Libya, Palestine, Afghanistan and, to a lesser extent, Syria.
Iraq and Afghanistan, in particular, have been subjected to an externally imposed conflict not for years, but for decades.
al-Qaida and ISIS did not exist in Iraq before the onslaught of (former U.S. president George) Bush’s “shock and awe.” ISIS was further nourished by the appalling ignorance of Paul Bremer who dismissed the entire Sunni sector from government and the military. The nemesis that is now ISIS, which seems to have sprung from nowhere, is largely directed by former Baathist generals and financed by foreign money.
We have Harper arguing that more bombs, including Canadian ones, are necessary to cleanse Iraq and Syria. When will we come to understand that it is non-violent assistance, enhanced by a balanced foreign policy, that will alleviate our refugee problem?
WALTER RASMUSSEN Delta
Having missed a lot of school due to the Second World War, my writing skills may not be articulate but I find the anger over the recent refugee situation a little too much. At 16 I became a soldier and at 17 in Burma fighting the Japanese. Why was that necessary? Well, for starters to defend India and anywhere else the Japanese decided to invade. My comrades back home in England were defending Britain. What would have happened if we all decided to instead become refugees and abandon our country, allowing the Germans and Japanese to take what they wanted?
Seems to me a vast majority of Middle Easterners have no desire to defend their places of birth and instead expect the western world to feed, clothe, shelter and totally take care of them until they organize themselves to then start their demands. That’s not even mentioning their misguided belief to a right of settling wherever they wish. Great Britain has more problems today and is unrecognizable from the beautiful, peaceful country it used to be before the Muslim influx and the aggressive demands for change to their ways. Here, of course, we have political parties looking to increase their own voter support ready to take in more (NDP 10,000 Liberals 25,000) without any thought to consequences down the road.
America gave Syrians weapons and vehicles to defend their land and look what happened. One shot was fired and they quickly dropped those weapons, abandoned the vehicles and ran. It seems they expect the western world to fight their wars as well!
I’m almost 90, but wouldn’t hesitate to pick up arms and fight for my home, Canada. I wouldn’t run away and cause chaos to other countries.
K. CLARKE Surrey