Canada As Rental Unit
As usual, Canadians are lined up oppositionally, in a polarizing discussion about the need for Canada to take in people expressing a need for refuge, and declaring themselves to be refugees. We are, after all as Canadians, mindful of the privileged lives we share living in a country with vast natural resources, with a stable political system, and legal guarantees of rights and privileges as Canadians under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Many of us are mindful of our great good fortune, and with that mindfulness comes a tinge of compassion for so many of the world's population who have the great misfortune to live within countries well known for their repressive totalitarian status. Where minorities, whether ethnic, cultural or religious, are disenfranchised and suffer institutional abuse. Canada takes more than its share of the world's downtrodden and unfortunate.
And because of the country's generosity in providing to newcomers all the privileges of citizenship, enabling people to legally work, to draw upon social services including taxpayer-sponsored health care, the country has become a magnet for those understandably wishing to achieve a better lifestyle, enjoy personal freedoms, and aspire to a more financially promising future. All well and good, for those who have should be amenable to sharing. To a degree.
People who initiate emigration from their home countries to a foreign one must apply for acceptance as immigrants by satisfying the receovomg countries' parameters identifying them as potential future citizens of the country. Refugees are defined as people living in desperate conditions, often in refugee camps, outcasts from their native countries due to war, civil unrest, the duress of dictatorships.
Canada is regarded as a country sensitive to the needs of refugees. The country has demonstrated its humanitarian credentials time over time, in taking in people fleeing inhumane living conditions, fearing for their lives. There are those who enter the country to declare themselves refugees when they are clearly wishful immigrants, people interested in making a new life for themselves in Canada who do not really qualify as refugees.
But whether we're talking potential immigrants or refugees there is a huge backlog; people suffering around the world, living in squalid refugee camps and anxiously awaiting the opportunity to be accepted by some country that will rescue them from their living hell. And another immense backlog of would-be immigrants whose applications must be processed in a time-consuming bureaucratic ritual to ensure that successful matches are made.
All migrants, whether they are economic migrants or genuine refugees understand that there is a process to be undertaken to ensure the welcoming country does not accept people with criminal pasts, those who present with false documentation, those who have the potential to bring harm to the country, those clearly incapable of accepting Canadian values and melding into the general society. Those who don't make the grade have their applications denied.
Most would-be immigrants make their applications from outside the country. Refugees often seek to bypass that out-of-country process, claiming, often with good reason, that they have fled danger and need to find refuge quickly. Another arrival of a shipload of 490 Tamils from Sri Lanka seeking refugee status in Canada has caused a furor because of the unorthodoxy of their approach, arriving at Canada's shores as a fait accompli.
These are not indigent refugees; they were smuggled over the high seas from the east to the west, in a four-month voyage of covert intention. Each of the refugees had to pay a truly hefty ticket for passage in the range of $40 to $50K. This represented a windfall of substantial proportions for the smugglers, and a bypassing of the system by the Sri Lankans claiming to have fled oppression and a country where they have always been repressed.
Canada's extremely large Sri Lankan population has continued to sponsor family-class immigration applications. A relatively small number of Tamil applications are turned down. The 'refugee' ship represents a real fast-tracking of the system. And now it appears that despite the awful living conditions, the prejudice and the lack of opportunity for Tamils in Sri Lanka, Canadian Tamils are not averse to returning to the island nation, and do so regularly and in large numbers.
The reading public is informed that Tamils recently arrived on the MV Sun Sea are confused and upset that they remain isolated and confined while their applications are being processed. It isn't pleasant being installed in minimum security holding situations; for men in prisons, the children in social agency care for the time being, and others with their mothers. They would much prefer to be permitted to go about their way, be reunited with family here.
Most will likely be released, pending final determination of their status, as was done with the 78 Tamil men who arrived last year on yet another rickety old ship in an earlier incident of illegal smuggling and refugee declaration. The facilities where they are housed are not ideal. Their method of arrival was not ideal. In some instances the Sri Lankan Tamil Canadians have not conducted themselves in an ideal manner within the country.
Bringing to Canada their battle for Tamil independence, their fight for a Tamil homeland within Sri Lanka. Their very public support for the Tamil Tigers, an outlawed terror group, did us no favours, and in the final analysis, leading to a civil war where the Tigers abused their own people as human shields and the government of Sri Lanka was happy enough to destroy the lives of the human shields.
Fleeing persecution in Sri Lanka is understandable. Bringing the battle to Canada and using it as a jumping-off perch to raise funds for a resurgent Tamil Tigers regrouping, and returning from Canada to Sri Lanka to join the ranks of the Tigers does not remotely represent loyalty to Canada. It does, however, amply demonstrate this country representing a rental unit useful while the customized house is being built for future residence.
Many of us are mindful of our great good fortune, and with that mindfulness comes a tinge of compassion for so many of the world's population who have the great misfortune to live within countries well known for their repressive totalitarian status. Where minorities, whether ethnic, cultural or religious, are disenfranchised and suffer institutional abuse. Canada takes more than its share of the world's downtrodden and unfortunate.
And because of the country's generosity in providing to newcomers all the privileges of citizenship, enabling people to legally work, to draw upon social services including taxpayer-sponsored health care, the country has become a magnet for those understandably wishing to achieve a better lifestyle, enjoy personal freedoms, and aspire to a more financially promising future. All well and good, for those who have should be amenable to sharing. To a degree.
People who initiate emigration from their home countries to a foreign one must apply for acceptance as immigrants by satisfying the receovomg countries' parameters identifying them as potential future citizens of the country. Refugees are defined as people living in desperate conditions, often in refugee camps, outcasts from their native countries due to war, civil unrest, the duress of dictatorships.
Canada is regarded as a country sensitive to the needs of refugees. The country has demonstrated its humanitarian credentials time over time, in taking in people fleeing inhumane living conditions, fearing for their lives. There are those who enter the country to declare themselves refugees when they are clearly wishful immigrants, people interested in making a new life for themselves in Canada who do not really qualify as refugees.
But whether we're talking potential immigrants or refugees there is a huge backlog; people suffering around the world, living in squalid refugee camps and anxiously awaiting the opportunity to be accepted by some country that will rescue them from their living hell. And another immense backlog of would-be immigrants whose applications must be processed in a time-consuming bureaucratic ritual to ensure that successful matches are made.
All migrants, whether they are economic migrants or genuine refugees understand that there is a process to be undertaken to ensure the welcoming country does not accept people with criminal pasts, those who present with false documentation, those who have the potential to bring harm to the country, those clearly incapable of accepting Canadian values and melding into the general society. Those who don't make the grade have their applications denied.
Most would-be immigrants make their applications from outside the country. Refugees often seek to bypass that out-of-country process, claiming, often with good reason, that they have fled danger and need to find refuge quickly. Another arrival of a shipload of 490 Tamils from Sri Lanka seeking refugee status in Canada has caused a furor because of the unorthodoxy of their approach, arriving at Canada's shores as a fait accompli.
These are not indigent refugees; they were smuggled over the high seas from the east to the west, in a four-month voyage of covert intention. Each of the refugees had to pay a truly hefty ticket for passage in the range of $40 to $50K. This represented a windfall of substantial proportions for the smugglers, and a bypassing of the system by the Sri Lankans claiming to have fled oppression and a country where they have always been repressed.
Canada's extremely large Sri Lankan population has continued to sponsor family-class immigration applications. A relatively small number of Tamil applications are turned down. The 'refugee' ship represents a real fast-tracking of the system. And now it appears that despite the awful living conditions, the prejudice and the lack of opportunity for Tamils in Sri Lanka, Canadian Tamils are not averse to returning to the island nation, and do so regularly and in large numbers.
The reading public is informed that Tamils recently arrived on the MV Sun Sea are confused and upset that they remain isolated and confined while their applications are being processed. It isn't pleasant being installed in minimum security holding situations; for men in prisons, the children in social agency care for the time being, and others with their mothers. They would much prefer to be permitted to go about their way, be reunited with family here.
Most will likely be released, pending final determination of their status, as was done with the 78 Tamil men who arrived last year on yet another rickety old ship in an earlier incident of illegal smuggling and refugee declaration. The facilities where they are housed are not ideal. Their method of arrival was not ideal. In some instances the Sri Lankan Tamil Canadians have not conducted themselves in an ideal manner within the country.
Bringing to Canada their battle for Tamil independence, their fight for a Tamil homeland within Sri Lanka. Their very public support for the Tamil Tigers, an outlawed terror group, did us no favours, and in the final analysis, leading to a civil war where the Tigers abused their own people as human shields and the government of Sri Lanka was happy enough to destroy the lives of the human shields.
Fleeing persecution in Sri Lanka is understandable. Bringing the battle to Canada and using it as a jumping-off perch to raise funds for a resurgent Tamil Tigers regrouping, and returning from Canada to Sri Lanka to join the ranks of the Tigers does not remotely represent loyalty to Canada. It does, however, amply demonstrate this country representing a rental unit useful while the customized house is being built for future residence.
Labels: Canada, Politics of Convenience, Security
posted by Pieface | 6:53 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home