PhilPaine.com

Canada’s Cab­i­net Min­is­ters of Immi­gra­tion (John McCal­lum), Defense (Har­jit Saj­jan), and Health (Jane Philpott) with Syr­i­an refugee children.

I’m a cur­mud­geony cyn­ic, most of the time, so it’s not often I get to pro­claim that I’m proud of my coun­try. But the behav­iour of Cana­di­ans in the last week has filled me with pride. Last month, I post­ed a let­ter I sent to my Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, ask­ing that the com­mit­ment to admit­ting Syr­i­an refugees to Cana­da be expand­ed to greater num­bers. My sen­ti­ments seem to be shared by most Cana­di­ans, but that is not the case elsewhere.

In the Unit­ed States, the major­i­ty of politi­cians (all Repub­li­cans, of course, but many Democ­rats, too) have decid­ed to be pals with ISIS, col­lab­o­rat­ing in their attroc­i­ties by mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for their vic­tims to find refuge. The March­ing Morons have tri­umphed, and there have been numer­ous acts of ter­ror­ism against inno­cent peo­ple, encour­aged and abet­ted by Fox Prav­da and the usu­al Con­ser­v­a­tive scumbags. 

My friend Fil­ip Marek, in Prague, sends me dis­tress­ing news items. Miloš Zeman, the pres­i­dent of the Czech Repub­lic, has been spout­ing vile racist and xeno­pho­bic garbage of the most dis­gust­ing sort — and soar­ing to pop­u­lar­i­ty for it. He might as well be on the ISIS pay­roll. The news from many oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries is just as depress­ing, if the news­pa­pers I con­sult are giv­ing an accu­rate pic­ture. There are decent peo­ple in all coun­tries who are step­ping for­ward to help the Syr­i­ans, but the depth of nas­ti­ness demon­strat­ed by a very large num­ber of peo­ple is extreme­ly depress­ing and disturbing.

Our Prime Min­is­ter with a Syr­i­an refugee arriv­ing in Toronto.

But Cana­di­ans have respond­ed to the refugee cri­sis in a way that glad­dens my heart. Although there was some ini­tial neg­a­tive response when the new gov­ern­ment announced its plan to quick­ly bring in 25,000 refugees, this melt­ed away as pub­lic sen­ti­ment shift­ed to sym­pa­thy for the refugees. “Let’s live up to who we are as Cana­di­ans by tack­ling this chal­lenge, seiz­ing this oppor­tu­ni­ty,” said David John­ston, Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al (in Cana­da, the for­mal Head of State) at the Forum on Wel­com­ing Syr­i­an Refugees to Cana­da, which was set-up to map out logis­tics. Groups of every reli­gious creed have orga­nized cloth­ing dri­ves, hous­ing funds, and band­ed togeth­er to spon­sor refugees. The very small num­ber of anti-refugee inci­dents were denounced by the vast major­i­ty of Cana­di­ans, and the hate-filled cranks have crawled back under the floor­boards and into the sew­ers. There are no politi­cians in any par­ty voic­ing hos­til­i­ty to the Syr­i­ans. The first plane-load of refugees arrived in Toron­to to be greet­ed per­son­al­ly by the Prime Min­is­ter (who was cheer­ful­ly hand­ing out sweaters from a car­ton). Sure, this was a pho­to-op for the new­ly elect­ed PM, but the footage left no doubt that the sen­ti­ment was sin­cere, and his sym­pa­thy real. School chil­dren and church groups from across the coun­try sent wel­com­ing greet­ings and gifts. 

In my blog post, I men­tioned that among the most active in wel­com­ing Syr­i­an refugees have been the com­mu­ni­ty of Viet­namese Cana­di­ans. They know all too well the hard­ships that refugees under­go. This video appeared on the web­site of the Man­ches­ter Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/oct/30/canada-vietnam-syria-refugees-video

Yes, it’s per­mis­si­ble for as grumpy a cyn­ic as myself — now and then — to be open­ly proud of his country.