Ottawa is backsliding on refugees. We cannot return to the contemptible policies of our past

Canada’s nakedly racist immigration insurance policies aren’t historical historical past. It was solely within the Nineteen Seventies that they had been lastly wound down as coverage, although the color blindness of some immigration officers was by no means plausible. The division is at the moment underneath investigation for allegations of years of systemic racism.

Canada had a racist screening system that was thinly veiled as “geographic” quotas solely 50 years in the past. Our quotas in these days permitted 1,000 immigrants per yr from Asia — and 100 instances that from Europe. In recent times, we have now received a worldwide repute for the openness and equity of each our immigration and refugee screening processes. We have now essentially the most profitable file on the planet at immigration integration. However, sometimes a number of the outdated impulses seem to push to the floor once more.

The Trudeau authorities pledged that we’d admit 40,000 Afghan refugees after the autumn of Kabul final August. Within the months since, we have now welcomed lower than 20 per cent of that pledge. Varied bureaucracies have erected their regular obstacles when they’re decided to gradual stroll a coverage to failure. First they claimed they may not admit extra of the determined as a result of they didn’t have screening services in Kabul. The EU eliminated that excuse by providing to share theirs.

The Division of Justice threw sand within the gears, as authorities legal professionals do, saying, “Right here’s why you possibly can’t try this legally, minister!” Extremely, they cited the prohibition on aiding “terrorism” if help got to refugee claimants. It’s absurdly clear nonsense that a number of extra professional Canadian legal professionals have laughed at. International Affairs and Public Security, two ministries one would have thought had an necessary function, have been nudged apart by the intransigent foot draggers.

In fact we must always open our doorways to tens of hundreds of Ukrainian refugees as rapidly as potential. Nonetheless, the place non-Muslim European refugees are involved there look like completely different guidelines.

Ukrainians are being waved by as a result of it’s claimed they’re “unlikely to remain.” Maybe. However they are going to be welcomed into our huge Ukrainian Canadian group, and plenty of might determine to remain. Many will deliver expertise and expertise in excessive demand by employers. Few will want integration assist, besides maybe in buying fluency in English or French.

However the gorgeous distinction in political signalling by this authorities to 1 refugee group versus one other is considerably abdomen turning. There have been half a dozen ministerial visits to Europe to make sure our assist flows in and their refugees can move out.

The variety of Canadian ministers who’ve gone to Pakistan to assist pace up the transport and certification of Afghan refugees because the election? No prizes for guessing — none. The newest excuse for the tragic delay in getting Afghans who put their lives on the road to assist Canadian troopers, diplomats and journalists: “backlog.”

For many years, immigration departments have used the excuse that the years-long look ahead to refugees and immigrants to be processed is because of backlog. What would the response of a authorities be if, for instance, the CRA mentioned they may not get Canadians their tax reimbursement cheques out in lower than 18 months due to backlog?

They might repair it: rent employees, whip the paperwork, and demand outcomes or heads on a block. So why can we permit backlog to be the “canine ate my homework” excuse from immigration bureaucrats? Maybe it’s as a result of governments really choose their skill to choke the variety of refugees — except, in fact, they’re from a rustic the place tens of millions of Canadian voters have roots and are demanding motion.

So allow us to return to the times when ministers greeted refugees from war-torn hells on the airport, regardless of which warfare had torn their lives aside. Let there not be even a scintilla of suspicion that we’re sliding again to the contemptible refugee coverage that we’re so happy with having erased two generations in the past.

Or we’ll get up one morning to the information that the Taliban have murdered yet one more Canada-bound refugee — one whose luck ran out after months of ready for the silence from the immigration paperwork to lastly finish.

Robin V. Sears was an NDP strategist for 20 years and later served as a communications adviser to companies and governments on three continents. He’s a contract contributing columnist for the Star. Observe him on Twitter: @robinvsears