The Syrian refugee crisis has challenged Canada’s identity as a generous, peacekeeping, and multicultural country.
Federal leaders are making promises and perpetuating the romanticized Canadian identity throughout this 2015 campaign. But questions about the authenticity of these promises need to be asked. Are these realistic promises? Are the leaders using Canada’s peacekeeping identity to attract voters?
Fear is used as a scapegoat by the current government to perpetuate their phobia of Muslim terrorists. The rhetoric of fear towards Syrian refugees plays a key role in the Harper government’s ability to ramp up control over Canadian security and borders.
Islamophobia generates a panic, which Harper’s government is using to gain votes as he promotes his security agenda that is supposed to protect citizens. Some may say security is a legitimate reason for Canada’s lack of refugee acceptance, and that Canada’s economy comes first, but this is a position usually taken on by Conservatives, which demonstrates Harper’s wedge politics.
This fear is socially constructed, and illogical. When refugees immigrate to a new country, they are more likely than citizens to throw themselves into the economy by getting a job, opening a store or business, and abiding by laws.
Canada has more than enough room to let in additional refugees than Harper’s “generous” 10,000 Syrians by next September. Germany, for example, proposes to bring in 800,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2015, and Turkey has taken in two million.
Harper’s proposed acceptance of 10,000 Syrian refugees is superficial and should be taken at face value, especially during this election season. He attempts to uphold Canada’s peacekeeping identity as the picture of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian boy whose body washed up on the shores of Turkey last month, resonates with Canadians that quickly sought some political responses.
But let’s not forget Harper’s government proposed Bill C-31 in 2012 that stripped refugees of their health care services—a violation of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The law also required mandatory, non-reviewable detention of irregular refugee arrivals, including their children. Seven thousand migrants were detained in Canada’s detention centres last year alone. None have committed criminal offences. They’re trying to escape horrific circumstances in their home countries.
More explicit is the $265 million of taxpayer money being spent on incarcerating refugees.
To take Harper’s word is to aid his perpetual deterioration of our human rights and freedoms. Why would Harper let this many immigrants in now compared to his promises years before?
Both Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau are not innocent bystanders in instilling Canada’s identity, but have taken more progressive stances on their responsibility to taking in more refugees in a timely manner. This is all under the weight of campaign season, remember, where the main goal is to secure votes.
Trudeau proposes to take in 25,000 Syrian refugees, while Mulcair promises 10,000 by the end of this year. Mulcair claims he will appoint a Syrian Refugee Coordinator, embrace private sponsorship of refugees, and provide more humanitarian assistance on the ground. Trudeau also promises to increase case workers and resources in the region.
This isn’t the time to make exceptions to Canada’s identity, but a time to forge Canada’s identity. Canada will be judged by its actions moving forward.
In this election, voters should consider how they want to form their country’s identity. We should all scrutinize the Canadian peacekeeping identity and fight for transparency and humanitarian missions from our leaders.
