Canada's Refugee Policy Under Harper

The government's treatment of refugees under the new rules is deplorable. Refugees coming to Canada have serious problems. Post traumatic stress disorder, malnutrition, wounds, lack of education... They may also have chronic health conditions such as hyper-tension, diabetes, parasite infestations, heart conditions, malaria, TB.... Beyond that, they have been forced to leave their homes under terrible conditions. They may have lost loved ones. They often face huge language barriers and massive culture shock.

We had one of the best refugee health systems in the world. It was cost-effective and greatly increased the chances that refugees, by virtue of making connections with services they need, could integrate successfully into Canadian society.

People do not abandon everything they own and make difficult, dangerous journeys to a new country to get free health care. They do it to save their lives and the lives of their children.

Why has Stephen Harper's governemtn suddenly torn down our refugee care system? It was one of the most direct ways Canada demonstrated our humanitarian values in the world. The new rules effectively make it known that Canada no longer welcomes refugees. Only those with serious capital, or skilled workers, willing to work for 15% less than Canadians earn, need apply.

This is just another example of how Harper is turning our countryinto a cold, calculating, corporate interest. I know some people feel some righteous indignation at the idea that all those foreigners are flocking to our shores expecting hand-outs. They applaud the government's move to shut the door on "free-loaders". Incarceration for up to a year, upon arrival. That'll make them think twice about ripping off the Canadian system, eh?

Hello? Apparently I have been under the mis-apprehension that Canada was a country predicated on helping others. Back in the day, if your neighbour's barn burned down, the whole community would turn out (with bean salads and potato salads in hand) to help build a new barn. If we saw a car accident, we would get help. If children were orphaned, the community would start a trust fund. We were a "taking up a collection" nation. And we applied this to our neighbours around the world. We sent peace-keepers into war-torn countries to respond to needs for the protection of civilians. We sent relief teams (like the world famous DART) to deal with natural disasters.

I'm not sure when this became old-fashioned thinking. I've got to say, I don't like it.

I know Canada can't help every person in need in the world. That we cannot possibly accommodate every person who would love to escape war, famine, torture or persecution. But we are such a wealthy country. Is it not our moral responsibility to do the best we can?

The new rules undermine all that Canada has stood for in terms of refugee aid. I suspect these new rules also violate several international treaties on the treatment of refugees to which Canada is a signatory.

Which would not surprise me much. Our Prime Minister does not seem to be bothered by international agreements that do not deal with trade and, by extension, profit.

We are a nation of refugees. People have been coming to this country for centuries to escape untenable situations at home. Land enclosure in Scotland, the potato famine in Ireland, the cossacks' brutal control of Eastern Europe, various waves of Jewish and Romany persecution, the rise of Maoism in China, the revolutions in Cuba, Chile, Nicuragua, the VietNam war, the drug wars in Latin America, the Kmer Rouge in Cambodia, desperate poverty in Haiti, famine in Africa....

To be specific:

1776: 3,000 Black Loyalists, among them freemen and slaves, fled the oppression of the American Revolution and came to Canada.

1781: Butler’s Rangers, a military unit loyal to the Crown and based at Fort Niagara, settled some of the first Loyalist refugees from the United States in the Niagara peninsula, along the northern shores of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

1783: Sir Guy Carleton, Governor of the British Province of Quebec, and later to become Lord Dorchester, safely transported 35,000 Loyalist refugees from New York to Nova Scotia. Some settled in Quebec, and others in Kingston and Adolphustown in Ontario.

1789: Lord Dorchester, Governor-in-Chief of British North America, gave official recognition to the “First Loyalists” – those loyal to the Crown who fled the oppression of the American Revolution to settle in Nova Scotia and Quebec.

1793: Upper Canada became the first province in the British Empire to abolish slavery. In turn, over the course of the 19th century, thousands of black slaves escaped from the United States and came to Canada with the aid of the Underground Railroad, a Christian anti-slavery network.

Late 1700s:  Scots Highlanders, refugees of the Highland Clearances during the modernization of Scotland, settled in Canada.

1830: Polish refugees fled to Canada to escape Russian oppression. The year 1858 marked the first significant mass migration of Poles escaping Prussian occupation in northern Poland.

1880-1914: Italians escaped the ravages of Italy’s unification as farmers were driven off their land as a result of the new Italian state reforms.

1880-1914: Thousands of persecuted Jews, fleeing pogroms in the Pale of Settlement, sought refuge in Canada.

1891: The migration of 170,000 Ukrainians began, mainly to flee oppression from areas under Austro-Hungarian rule, marking the first wave of Ukrainians seeking refuge in Canada.

1920-1939: The second wave of Ukrainians fled from Communism, civil war and Soviet occupation.

1945-1952: The third wave of Ukrainians fled Communist rule.

1947-1952: 250,000 displaced persons (DPs) from Central and Eastern Europe came to Canada, victims of both National Socialism (Nazism) and Communism, and Soviet occupation.

1950s: Canada admitted Palestinian Arabs, driven from their homeland by the Israeli-Arab war of 1948.

1950s-1970s: A significant influx of Middle Eastern and North African Jews fled to Canada.

1956: 37,000 Hungarians escaped Soviet tyranny and found refuge in Canada.

1960s: Chinese refugees fled the Communist violence of the Cultural Revolution.

1968-1969: 11,000 Czech refugees fled the Soviet and Warsaw Pact Communist invasion.

1969:  Canada signed the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, and its Protocol, agreeing not to return a person to their country of origin if that person had grounds to fear persecution.

1970s: 7,000 Chilean and other Latin American refugees were allowed to stay in Canada after the violent overthrow of Salvador Allende’s government in 1973.

1970-1990: Deprived of political and religious freedom, 20,000 Soviet Jews settled in Canada.

1971: After decades of being denied adequate political representation in the central Pakistani government, thousands of Bengali Muslims came to Canada at the outbreak of the Bangladesh Liberation War.

1971-1972: Canada admitted some 228 Tibetans. These refugees, along with their fellow countrymen, were fleeing their homeland after China occupied it in 1959.

1972-1973: Following Idi Amin’s expulsion of Ugandan Asians, 7,000 Ismaili Muslims fled and were brought to Canada.

1979: Iranian refugees fled Iran following the overthrow of the Shah and the imposition of an Islamic Fundamentalist regime.

1979 -1980: More than 60,000 Boat People found refuge in Canada after the Communist victory in the Vietnam War.

1980s: Khmer Cambodians, victims of the Communist regime and the aftershocks of Communist victory in the Vietnam War, fled to Canada.

1982: The Constitution of Canada was amended to entrench the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

1986: The United Nations awarded Canada the Nansen Medal for its outstanding humanitarian tradition of settling refugees.

1990s: By the 1990s, asylum seekers came to Canada from all over the world, particularly Latin America, Eastern Europe and Africa.

1992: 5,000 Bosnian Muslims were admitted to Canada to escape the ethnic cleansing in the Yugoslav Civil War.

1999: Canada airlifted more than 5,000 Kosovars, most of whom were Muslim, to safety.

2006: Canada resettled over 3,900 Karen refugees from refugee camps in Thailand.

2008: Canada began the process of resettling more than 5,000 Bhutanese refugees over five years.

2010: Refugees from more than 140 countries were either resettled or were granted asylum in Canada.
(source:  http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/refugees/timeline.asp)

If you are not First Nations, chances are good that at least one of your ancestors arrived here as a result of fleeing intolerable conditions in another country.

Some of my ancestors came to Canada because the land enclosure system in Scotland left them landless and starving. They travelled in steerage with a lot of children (one child died enroute). They spoke Gaellic, not English. They homesteaded in Saskatchewan and were successful, productive members of society, as were their children, grand-children and great grand-children. They count among the founders of the community in which they lived.

In what way were they more deserving of salvation from their desperate plight than those today fleeing oppressive regimes, famine, etc? Was it because they were caucasian? British citizens? Farmers? Are these good reasons?

We do not have unlimited space or resources, it is true. The government line is that they are now preventing refugees from claiming extra services that Canadians are not entitled to.  They were not receiving any extra services to begin with. Now they get much less.

I feel the rationale underlying the current backlash against refugees has more to do with a combination of xenophobia and greed, than resource stewardship.

Anyway, those are my thoughts from out here in the bush.

Update: I have just come into contact with this video. Doctors are not at all happy about the new refugee health policies.  Doctor heckles Health Minister Joe Oliver