Saskatchewan is preparing to greet at least 2,000 refugees from Syria within the next 35 days. According to various reports, some, who had been interviewed and had their red tape issues processed earlier, are already in Canada.
We welcome them, but, and there is always a but, there are always questions when events of this magnitude are placed before Canadians.
When newly minted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau boldly announced Canada was going to accept 25,000 refugees before the end of this year, we question the viability of the project.
The end-of-year deadline is an arbitrary one, made up on the run by Trudeau and his campaign team. It was one of over 300 promises made by the Liberals as they forged a plan to unseat the Conservatives.
So we have to ask the question, is this edict to accept 25,000 Syrian refugees on Canadian soil in one month a sign of compassion or foolishness?
Are Canadian officials at the various levels of this grand scheme prepared and armed well enough to bring in 1,000 refugees a day for the next 25 days? Just finding enough people-hauling aircraft in a holiday season, is a huge logistical problem.
Housing, feeding, providing warm clothing for thousands who fled the war with nothing much more than the clothes on their backs, many of them children, need to be brought in properly, and that includes positive attitudes of acceptance … on both sides of the equation.
The incoming refugees need to be vetted properly, not haphazardly and that point, along with the timeline, was a legitimate concern raised by Premier Wall last week. Critics crawled all over his comments about slowing down the procedure so things could be done correctly. Do we need this over-reaction to a simple and obvious question and concern?
We must take into consideration that many of these refugees, once established in Canada, will be applying to have close and extended family members join them within a year or two. Are we prepared to continue with a robust vetting system including family background checks over the next decade or two? That’s what we are signing up for.
Who conducts these checks and counter-checks? Are they willing to give up their Christmas holidays in order to meet the Trudeau-inspired deadline?
Freshly arrived refugees will need to be schooled in our language. They will have to be taught all about democracy and how it works in Canada and what will be expected of them and what they can expect from us, and hopefully that won’t include Islamophobia or cultural backlashes.
Are there enough English as a Second Language teachers available in Canada and in Saskatchewan? Do we have enough fridges, stoves, desks, money and patience to accommodate our newest citizens comfortably?
Our humble suggestion is that we put our logistical refugee vetting, assessment, transportation, acceptance and accommodation teams into action mode and start welcoming as many Syrian refugees as we can handle in a sensible manner and reasonable rate, understanding that the numbers in Europe are piling up and time is of the essence for many.
We want our rookie Canadians to feel welcomed. We need to relieve their stress factors, and we don’t need our own intake officials to be feeling overwhelmed simply because a rookie PM made up a phony deadline.
We need to do it right, acting quickly but correctly and carefully keeping in mind it has been proven, time and again, that newly minted Canadians most often appreciate our form of democracy more than we do because they’ve seen and lived on the other side and know what Canada and Saskatchewan has to offer is pretty positive.
