Dear fellow Canadians,
Over the last few months, a lot of the stories I’ve read in the news have had to do with Syrian Refugees. When I’m not reading about their plight in the news, it seems I’m reading on Facebook about my friends/acquaintances’ feelings and opinions about Canada’s support of these people. Increasingly, I find myself frustrated, disappointed and at times, down-right disgusted. Not at the refugees, who are “stealing our jobs”, who are being given “unfair advantages” such as free education and, as I read in a news article this morning, free bus passes and access to the recreation centres in Guelph, Ontario. I’m not frustrated or disappointed or disgusted with them. It is the alarming number of my fellow Canadians speaking out against our Government’s offers of assistance who I am disturbed by. It is the people I know, and the many I don’t, who think these people are somehow less entitled to be helped simply because they weren’t lucky enough to have been born here.
In my opinion, it comes down to these two very simple principles: 1) The Golden Rule, or “make yourself part of the equation”; and, 2) The Either/Or Fallacy, or “take yourself out of the equation”.
1) The first principle is exceedingly simple, so let me start there. Ask yourself the following question: If something catastrophic were to happen to my community, would I want others, if they had the means to do so, to offer their help? Unless you’re a masochist, I suspect the answer is yes. So what on Earth is the problem? The Golden Rule is, quite simply, about treating others the way you would want to be treated. It is so sad to see that this basic concept of human compassion seems to be too difficult for many of my peers to grasp. Why don’t you try putting yourself in the shoes of those you are so quick to throw under the bus so you can ride on it for free?
2) So many of the angry comments I’ve read have been from people who seem to think the Canadian Government’s assistance of Syrian refugees is an “Either/Or” scenario: Either they are offered free education, or you are. Either they are offered free bus passes, or you are. At this point, unfair as it may seem, the general Canadian populace (myself included) is not part of the equation at all. I, like many Canadians, pay what I consider to be an exorbitant amount of money each month for the train and subway ride I have to take to get to work each day. It’s tough, it’s frustrating and, of course, I wish it was cheaper. But here’s where I take myself out of the equation, and encourage you to do the same. If the Government wasn’t offering free bus passes, or other incentives, to Syrian refugees, it by no way means that those incentives would be offered to you. These refugees aren’t taking anything from you. They are accepting help offered by a kind, compassionate Government willing to do what they can to ease the suffering these people have been forced to endure. Isn’t that something we as Canadians can, and should be, proud of?
Let me pose another “Either/Or” to you: Either you get to continue living your life, get to keep your friends & family, even get to keep the ignorance you’ve been displaying if you still wish to do so – given this is, after all, a free country – but you have to pay for your education and your bus pass. OR you can watch as your loved ones are killed, you can be starved for months, you can live in a refugee camp, and you can have every shred of pride and vanity and even hope gradually stripped away from you. Then, you can be relocated to a country that shares neither your language nor your culture; a country that is safer, sure, but that is hundreds of miles away from everything you’ve ever known. You can dress yourself in someone else’s coat, you can force yourself to remember what it felt like to be hopeful and accept a free bus ride to a recreation centre to try to regain some semblance of the life you once knew, once cherished. And although your friends and family may be missing or dead, although you may have watched men, women and children drown before your eyes as they desperately fled towards apparent safety, although you may have experienced any number of other horrific things, I'm sure not having to pay that $3 bus fare sure makes it all worth it…
So I ask you: Either/Or - which would you prefer?
Sincerely,
Concerned Canadian
