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Refugees Snub Trudeau

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Clarissa

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Canada’s Justin Trudeau is eager to bring Syrian refugees to the country. He’d pledged to bring 25,000 in by the end of this month, but here’s the problem: Syrians are not interested. Only a little over 6% of refugees who were invited to move to Canada agreed to consider the offer. Canada is too far, they say.

So here is my question. If refugees are so reluctant to go to Canada, a country with quite a strong welfare state and a strong Muslim community that’s enormously influential, then why would they want to go to the US, a country with next to no welfare state and no influential Muslim community from their region?

We’ve had so many discussions of Syrian refugees but has anybody bothered to ask if they want to come here?

10 responses to “Refugees Snub Trudeau”

  1. el Avatar
    el

    If they are so choosy, I think using the word “refugees” is wrong. They are immigrants to Germany (and Sweden?) and immigrants can be denied entry. Germany doesn’t own anybody to accept all of them, and in my opinion Merkel made a huge mistake by seemingly inviting all third world into her country.

    Your words regarding the distruction of welfare state are coming true. In anti-“accept all comers” blog, a German woman notes:

    “Welfare should be privatised, the elites should embrace the concept of noblesse oblige instead of dumping the burdens of globalisation on the disappearing middle class, the childless and working poor. We’d see a lot of self organised, voluntary deportations then.”

    The post in itself is quite interesting:

    The Long, Expensive, Bitter Road to Deportation
    http://www.germanimmigration.eu/2015/12/the-long-expensive-bitter-road-to-deportation.html

    I was impressed both by people on welfare living in expensive place and by Pakistan’s stance. Agree with the comment:

    \ So why doesn’t Germany stop giving student and tourist visas to the elite of Pakistan? Nobody is going to take back undesirables unless there is a cost to the desirables.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      “If they are so choosy, I think using the word “refugees” is wrong. They are immigrants to Germany (and Sweden?) ”

      No, these are people who are currently in Jordan and another neighboring country, I forget the name. Egypt?

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      1. el Avatar
        el

        \ No, these are people who are currently in Jordan and another neighboring country, I forget the name. Egypt?

        And they plan to stay there? 🙂

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          That I don’t know but I feel kind of bad that Canada is not wanted.

          By the way, my aunt from Donbass who came to Canada on a spouse visa has been denied the right to work. She still works, obviously, but doesn’t pay taxes. For some reason, Canada prefers to have people not pay taxes while in the country. It is very mystifying.

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          1. Dreidel Avatar
            Dreidel

            “on a spouse visa has been denied the right to work.”

            Why? Do you have to enter Canada on a different type of visa before you’re allowed employment?

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            1. Clarissa Avatar
              Clarissa

              It’s the same in the US. Many people have the right to live here but not the right to work. Which I find to be quite insane.

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  2. fluffymog Avatar
    fluffymog

    I returned to Britain after working in Canada because my family are here and I am British (and whilst I think much of what you say about the nation state is probably true, I cannot deny the experience that my birth country is where I want to live, and my broad birth region is ‘mine’ and ‘home’ in a way no other place is, and the words and culture and songs and stories that belong to those places resonate more than any other. And whilst those intangibles come with me wherever I go, they are rooted in a landscape and a particular set of behaviours and customs and places and are richest there. So I can also understand why people cling to nation-state as the political expression of what I think is a very human sense of belonging to a place…). And there was no war (unless you count the class war).

    But if I didn’t have those particular reasons to pick one place in the Western Europe-North America zone, I’d be putting a lot of effort into returning to Canada or moving to one of the Scandinavian countries. Whilst we still have the transport links and global communications networks allowed us by current levels of technology and fuel availability, I don’t honestly get why Canada is ‘too far’ – now, the hot summers could be offputting, but Germany also has them! so… ?

    But I’ve never been a refugee, never lived in a war zone, never lived somewhere where my broad religious tradition is not in alignment with the majority and not the context of the formation of the older parts of state and law – I’d imagine there are very many layers of psychological self-defense that form and many concerns about where one ends up I cannot imagine if you’re dealing with issues like those.

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  3. Amelia Avatar
    Amelia

    It’s all much simpler. The Canadian welfare state is better than the US welfare state, that’s true. BUT, the German or the Swedish welfare state is much better than the Canadian welfare state. It makes more financial sense to apply for asylum in Germany than in Canada. The benefits are higher, you get them for longer, it’s easier to apply for family reunification, there are higher child subsidies.

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  4. NG Avatar
    NG

    If the refugees don’t want to come to Canada then it’s ok with me. A terrorist today almost killed one person and injured two others in a London subway station. According to bystanders he said, “This is what happens when you f*** with mother Syria all of your blood will be spilled.” Police later subdued the attacker with a Taser.

    http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/dec/05/suspect-custody-after-stabbing-leytonstone-london-underground-station

    This the difference between a country with strict gun controls like England (0 dead and 3 wounded) versus a lax gun regime state exemplified by America (14 dead and 17 wounded.)

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      I had no idea. This is horrible. 😦

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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