Stephen Harper’s tepid response — so far — to the crisis facing Syrian refugees should come as no surprise. Take a leaky boat ride through Canadian history and you will encounter not infrequent examples of our governments’ callous disregard for the needs of those who either turn up on our shores or those who were here before so-called “European settlement.”
It took almost 100 years before the government apologized for the egregious treatment of 376 Sikhs, fellow citizens of the British Commonwealth, who sat on board a ship in Burrard inlet hoping for entry to Canada before being sent back to a violent reception in India.
It was equally difficult to get any acknowledgement of the destructive policy that caused Chinese men to have to pay an exorbitant head tax to come here and work while being separated from their families.
Canadians citizens of Japanese heritage never did fully recover from having been stripped of all their assets during the Second World War and then shipped off to what were essentially prison farms in B.C.’s Interior or further east in Canada, or offered the option of “returning” to Japan, a country many had never even visited.
Not to be forgotten in all of this is what we, as a matter of national policy, did to First Nations, tearing their children from families and sending them to residential schools and the frequent hell of sexual and physical abuse.
We have since officially expressed regret over that, too.
Then there was the case of Jewish refugees, some of my ancestors I have been told among them, who were fleeing the pogroms of Europe and Hitler’s “solution” only to be turned back by Canada before, during and after the Second World War.
This is not to say we have not had moments to be proud of. Recollections of Canada’s racist policy towards Jewish immigration prompted quite a different response in 1979 to the Vietnamese “boat people” escaping the Communist regime.
Globe and Mail reporter Sean Fine noted this last week in a story with the print headline “When Canada was a leader.” Deputy Immigration Minister John Manion brought the manuscript of None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933-1948 to Ron Atkey the Immigration Minister in the new Tory government of Joe Clark.
“This should not be you,” Manion told Atkey. Atkey took that message to the Progressive Conservative cabinet table. While there was some resistance, both Clark and External Affairs minister Flora MacDonald were in support. Last week, Clark told the Globe, “He drew the parallels to our attention.”
That, and a conversation with then-U.S. president Jimmy Carter, led to Canada stunning the world by upping its refugee target from 12,000 to 50,000.
It was also proof that Canada was capable of handling relatively massive refugee resettlement programs.
Unfortunately we seem to have slipped back to being our more traditional parsimonious selves. Regardless of Harper’s claims to the contrary, we are no longer leaders or even close.
While Germany is talking about accepting refugees and migrants in the order of 800,000 and allocating a budget of $6.6 billion dollars, Harper has set our target most recently at 10,000. (At one point, when asked about how much of that target Canada had met, journalists were told they would have to file a request under Freedom of Information legislation.)
In spite of Harper’s reticence there is a ground swell of support from Canadians to do more.
Mayors of major cities across Canada, including Vancouver’s Gregor Robertson, are encouraging folks to find out what they can do. Tuesday night there was a forum at City Hall explaining how to do just that.
But while many hold out the hope that this will not become a partisan issue, many, including Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, point out how Harper’s regime has made it more difficult for both immigrants and refugees to enter Canada; they’ve changed the rules and reduced resources available to process applications.
The tipping point for our concern may well have been the picture of three-year-old Alan Kurdi’s dead body washed up on a Turkish beach. If nothing else, it should serve to remind us that it is far better to open our arms today than say we are sorry for not doing enough tomorrow.
