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How can and/or Should Canada help the European migrants?

Admiral Beez

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Canada accepts over 20,000 refugees annually.
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Given the migrant crisis in North Africa and the Middle East spilling into Europe, should Canada assist more? What should we do to help?
 
See link. It is mostly immigrants and the ultra-conservatives would seem to be intolerant of others, as shown by the protestors against the revised
curriculum.
They're not against the curriculum because of intolerance of others, but because they're against sex ed in general. As a parent myself who sees that children are not taught the basics of numeracy and literacy, I'd rather more time be spent on times tables and grammar than much of the TDSB's social engineering exercises. And that doesn't make me intolerant, just focused on core education. As for immigrants, well, we invited most of them, including myself and my parents. Most of today's immigrants comes from more religiously conservative countries - because those countries are targeted by Canada's emigrate marketing quotas. Did you expect them to arrive and accept our progressive views on sexuality and gender identity?

Anyway, that's not the point. Millions of people are suffering, arguably because of the West's interference in the region. What can we do to help, or should we? If we decide to help, my suggestion is that we use ships, not aircraft to transport the migrants from Europe to Canada. The housing and other costs must be fully covered by the Federal Gov't, as today municipalities are covering social housing.
 
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See link. It is mostly immigrants and the ultra-conservatives would seem to be intolerant of others, as shown by the protestors against the revised
curriculum.

That's the problem these refugees are coming from countries like Syria, where women have no rights and having a same sex relationship can land you in prison! They have been spoon fed Islam. They will bring their backwards views with them and will never accept our culture.
 
That's the problem these refugees are coming from countries like Syria, where women have no rights and having a same sex relationship can land you in prison! They have been spoon fed Islam. They will bring their backwards views with them and will never accept our culture.

That's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard. These refugees are fleeing to get away from totalitarian regimes, and if the choose to come to Canada they will be choosing to live under the rights and freedoms granted to all Canadian citizens by the constitution. Some may choose to live a religiously conservative life, just like many Christian families do, but as each child comes of age they will be free to follow whatever religious or social construct they want to. Within the bounds of the constitution people have the right to have their voices heard. That doesn't mean Canadian society in general has to give in to them. We're taking about a couple of thousand families, not a couple of million.
 
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That's the problem these refugees are coming from countries like Syria, where women have no rights and having a same sex relationship can land you in prison!
We're not so progressive - up until 1969 sodomy or buggery was illegal in Canada, putting your same sex relationship into Canadian prison. It's not so long ago that Quebec was a pseudo theocracy where the clergy and the government ruled hand in glove. Canada's last church-run "Indian Residential School" did not close until 1996.

My point is people change, minds and opinions and views change. I guarantee you, within three generations of life in Canada, the average nominal Muslim youth in Canada will be as secular as the average nominally Catholic youth. The religion of the west is materialism combined with independent spirituality (hence the popularity of high end yoga pants), not worship of a higher being.

My only resistance to bringing over a million migrants is that they'd all want to come to Toronto, and we do not have the ability or finances to house, feed and educate them all. So, if the Federal gov't brings them in, they must pay the lion's share.
 
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As a Canadian, who's been living in Germany for the past 3 years (and sees no return in sight) I thought I would share my perspective as a primary source about what's going on in Europe. You really have to distinguish between "economic" migrants and actual refugees.

First off, the majority of the German population is against uncontrolled immigration with no limits or selection criteria. Nonetheless that's not what the German press or government what you to hear. In fact in the past few years people simply do not believe the mainstream media anymore that they've started to refer to it as die Luegenpresse (lying press). I recall reading one article in the Suddeutschezeitung which claimed that 70 % of Germans were in favour of welcoming hundreds of thousands of refugees this year alone. Then you saw hundreds of comments saying how that's BS. The comments on the internet are generally 80 %+ negative towards these types of policies while the positive ones usually get a 4-1 dislike to like ratio. It's quite astonishing because in Germany any type of opposition to this type of immigration has been perceived for decades to be reminiscent of Nazism or racial hatred, which could land you in jail here. As a result many online newspapers don't allow comments anymore for articles having to do with refugees. In addition to that Merkel has met with Facebook and demanded that they censor any comments she deems as being "anti refugee" and she also intends to pass a law to criminalize any criticism of bringing over refugees as a Volksverhetzung (racial hatred).

Second I've passed by Keleti train station about a month ago and the great majority of the refugees are actually young men in their 20s or 30s. Whatever happened to women and children first? I see the same situation in Cologne as well. Walking by a refugee house in Koeln-Weiden I was astonished at how few families I saw but it was rather occupied by young men. A girlfriend of mine was actually attacked randomly by two "Arab" looking men that didn't speak any German; luckily she was able to fight them due to her athleticism and pepper spray but if they had been a couple of 2 meter tall Eritreans, she might not have been so lucky. And that's a reality, a lot of German people are afraid to walk the streets in certain neighbourhoods and fear for the future of their country. Because let's be realistic a million asylum applications in one year? It's quite possible that Germany gets 5 million refugees in the next 5 years. And why do they all want to go to Germany? Quite simply because in Germany asylum applicants, after their application is accepted, will be eligible for Hartz IV (a social welfare program in which the government pays for your accommodations and gives you 400 Euros a months). And the German taxpayer has to pay for all this after already being taxed 50 %.

That being said, I think Canada should be selective with the refugees they take (and only refugees no illegal economic migrants). Preferred would be families with a high level of education that show willingness to integrate. Criminal record and medical screenings should take place, which don't in Germany. In fact refugees that commit violent crimes are not so easily deported here. If we, Canadians, take everybody without any screenings, don't expect the migrants to be so tolerant. We need to apply our point system in this case.
 
I've noticed that in general people on the right side of the political spectrum tend to believe everyone else is bad (or a competitor to them) until they get to know them; while people on the left side of the political spectrum tend to believe that everyone they don't know is good unless they prove themselves to be bad. That becomes blatantly obvious in situations like this. People's default personal position on strangers drives this debate.
 
I’ve tried to provide a rational account of things from my perspective here in Deutschland/Europe and I see got a bit of an emotional outburst as a response :). It’s only a coincidence that these migrants risk their lives even further by marching from the safety of Greece to Germany huh?

A few questions for you:

  1. Do you currently live in Germany? If not how can you condemn my opinion so readily as a German resident and taxpayer? Furthermore how do you know what an average German thinks about the situation? How many Germans from Germany have you talked to recently?

  2. Do you at least speak fluent German? If not where do you get detailed information about the German asylum law who the foreign recipients of Hartz IV are and the integration costs? If you don’t live in Germany, the best source of information would be German newspapers, which are written mostly in German (if you believe them).

  3. Before this migrant crisis, have you spent a significant amount of time in a country that had a large amount of refugees in proportion to its population? I’ve spent a lot of time in Croatia in the 90s and 1992-93 they had about 500,000 refugees, some internal but most of them from Bosnia and when you saw those refugees, they were usually families with children and old people. Military aged men men in their 20s and 30s were a minority. Which brings me to question 3a. If all of these people really are refugees and not economic migrants, how come so many of them are young men in their 20s and 30s? A U.N. estimate a few weeks ago claimed that 72 % of people on the run are in fact working age men, giving way for only 28 % women, children and older people. Why is that? Wouldn’t you assume that these men would want to save their wives and children instead of leaving them behind?

  4. If you don’t believe my personal observations about refugee centres and Keleti train station that the majority are in fact young men, have you been to a refugee centre in Europe or Keleti? Do you even know where Keleti is without googling it?

  5. Can you tell me why you failed to criticize the fact that any rich gulf states (U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc), which are richer than your average E.U. country, failed to take one single refugee? If all of these migrants really are refugees, wouldn’t it be easier for them to integrate into U.A.E. for example? They speak Arabic, most Syrians are Sunni Muslims, plus it’s closer. Why are we talking about punishing poor reluctant E.U. states instead of taking matters to the rich gulf states?

  6. Tell me why do most of these migrants choose to go to Germany and Sweden as opposed to remaining in Italy, Greece or Spain? Let me guess “hip, tolerant and enlightened” Northern Europeans vs. “bigoted, racist, and not worthy of life” Eastern and Southern Europeans? Or you might say “better job opportunities” but if all of these migrants really are refugees, shouldn’t it be irrelevant where they stay as long as they’re in safety from harm’s way? But if they want “job opportunities” as you probably will claim then that sounds more like an economic migrant than a refugee.

  7. Do you know what the benefits are in Germany vs. say in Italy or Greece per head for the migrants? As I said before it’s only a coincidence that these migrants risk their lives even further by marching from the safety of Greece to Germany? Right………

  8. If you lived in a “low development” country somewhere in Africa, Asia or the Middle East, would you honestly forego the opportunity to get a paid apartment and 400 Euros a month from the German government? Sounds horrible in comparison to staying in Bangladesh….

  9. Do you know the general differences between the Canadian immigration/integration process vs. the European ones? Care to explain why the percentage of non-citizen/naturalized citizen social benefits recipients in Canada is drastically lower than in an “enlightened and tolerant” European country such as Denmark? Care also to explain why integration in countries such as France, Netherlands and Belgium for Middle Easterners/North Africans has been a disaster while in Canada it goes quite well? I’ve gone through both the immigration process for my wife (sponsorship of a spouse) and friends (selected on a points system) in Canada and then I had to go through it myself in Germany and if you think there isn’t much of a difference, then try again……

  10. Have you ever lived in the Arabic world? From somebody who has, please spend some time in an Arabic country before you draw conclusions…

  11. As for the comment that the internet is full of xenophobic comments, I may ask you question 2 if you speak German? If not how can you say that these comments from Germans are xenophobic? On the contrary most comments are simply against uncontrolled and non-registered immigration since most Germans want to know who the people entering the country are and whether they are actual refugees as opposed to economic migrants. Isn’t that common sense? Furthermore what you’re implying is that most people who comment on those pages are xenophobes. It’s been my observation that whenever there is an issue about same sex rights or a similar topic, most comments and likes are associates with pro same-sex marriage/rights and the “anti” comments get “downliked”. So if we were to combine that, most people who comment on the internet are pro same-sex marriage xenophobes? Interesting……
howl – General observation although not entirely inaccurate :). In my time on this earth I have lived in 5 countries and visited 50+ and all six continents (I don’t count Antarctica). I have seen enough to formulate my own opinions on certain situations and cultural interactions based on reason, empiricism and experience as opposed to fear-mongering, emotional outbursts or “moral shaming” and the situation does not look good in Europe.
 
I'm in Berlin right now, and the storefront directly next to me has a sign in the window saying "refugees welcome". Coworkers in my Berlin office mentioned that they inquired about volunteering to help settle refugees but were turned away because of the overwhelming outpouring of support. But I'm sure your angry internet commentators are totally representative!
 

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