Xenophobia illogical in Canada
Calgary Herald
Mon Aug 23 2010
Page: A8
Section: The Editorial
Page Byline:
Jeremy Klaszus Column:
Jeremy Klaszus
Source: For The Calgary Herald
It's a disconcerting string of stories, to say the least.
In April, Arizona passed a law cracking down on undocumented migrants, making it a crime for them to be in the state at all -- regardless of whether they're involved in criminal activity. Two months later, voters in Fremont, Neb., approved new rules forbidding local landlords and businesses from renting to or hiring undocumented workers.
The Arizona and Fremont laws have since run into legal snags (damn those checks and balances!), but elsewhere in the world, outsiders are being similarly targeted by states that want to thicken their borders -- even though these same states rely heavily on newcomers for labour.
In France this month, police have been uprooting small camps of impoverished Roma migrants, giving them two options: leave voluntarily with government help, or get deported.
It would be comforting to believe Canada is immune from this creeping xenophobia. Yet we saw it after a ship arrived in B.C. earlier this month with almost 500 Tamil migrants from Sri Lanka. "Victoria residents angry at arrival of Tamil refugees," brayed a Vancouver headline. In the story, Liberal MP Keith Martin said his office had been flooded with callers who were "angry because they don't want the Tamil people to be let into Canada and they don't want them drawing from our social services."
Sound familiar? Those callers use the same fearful rhetoric -- " they'll take what's ours" -- that U.S. politicians employed to get their nutty anti-Hispanic laws off the ground. Instead of calling for a more tempered response, the Harper Conservatives have fed Canadians' fears of the unknown.
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said the boat contained "suspected human smugglers and terrorists." That's scary stuff, no doubt about it -- and while there may be a degree of truth in those comments, it's far from the whole story. The migrants came from Sri Lanka, a country reeling from more than 25 years of civil war. According to Amnesty International, both sides of the conflict -- the government and Tamil Tigers -- broke international humanitarian law throughout. But while the government declared victory over the Tamil Tigers last year, Amnesty International says Tamil people living in Sri Lanka still face "enforced disappearances" and torture.
Human rights advocates and journalists are "killed, assaulted, threatened and jailed." That's a hell of a lot scarier than a boatload of strangers. But Prime Minister Stephen Harper chose to play the tough guy when facing the media after the ship docked: "We are responsible for the security of our borders, and the ability to welcome people, or not welcome people, when they come."
To be fair, he has a point. Of course Canada should seek a balance between national security and openness -- and the last thing Canada should do is provide a haven for human traffickers and others who abuse human rights. But Harper seems more interested in pleasing the cranky hardliners of his voter base than seeking that difficult balance. "Canadians are pretty concerned when a whole boat of people comes -- not through any normal application process, not through any normal arrival channel -- and just simply lands," Harper said of the recent arrivals. That's a revealing comment.
Modern Canada exists on this continent only because Europeans -- "whole boats" of them, to use Harper's words -- sailed here in the 16th and 17th centuries and simply landed. And "not through any normal application process" with the original inhabitants of the land, either. Many others arrived as refugees fleeing war in the years following, and now they and their children proudly call themselves Canadians. Anti-immigrant types hate to be reminded that white North Americans are either immigrants, or descended from immigrants. It makes their hysterical arguments look ridiculous.
But go back far enough and we're all outsiders. This fact, not xenophobia, should guide Canada as we face the complex challenge of handling modern asylum seekers.
Jeremy Klaszus is a Calgary freelance writer.
Edition: Final
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