When a picture (hopefully) changes everything

            It’s taken one photo to galvanize the public.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and in this case, it’s worth far more. 

The tragic photo of the three-year-old Syrian, Alan Kurdi, lying face-down on the beach could be the beginning of a dramatic change in Canada’s stance toward refugee claimants.  To date, the public has remained largely uninterested in the refugee crisis abroad, more interested in volatile stock markets and low oil prices.  It’s been easy to convince ourselves that this is primarily a European issue. 

But the boy’s connection to Canada highlighted the fact that this issue extends far beyond the Atlantic Ocean, where Canadians are very much connected to friends and family from around the world.

We can identify, having family in Ukraine where the civil war has caused us much worry and angst.

Our nephew narrowly escaped being withheld for military duty this February.  As soon as we learned the Ukrainian government planned to prevent military-aged men from leaving the country, we bought him a ticket to Canada.  He arrived three days later. 

He’s now attending school here, hoping to immigrate as soon as he secures employment.  His brother is less fortunate, still serving the second year of his five-year military contract.  He has the unenviable task of transporting and training Ukrainian civilians, anywhere from age 18 to 50, to participate in the ongoing conflict.  He already performed his tour of duty in the now infamous town of Debaltseve, where a bloody battle ensued last winter and rebel forces finally gained control.

Like in Ukraine, the situation in Syria has been deteriorating for years, but now is reaching a boiling point.  The refugees are clearly desperate, and they cannot be ignored.  Their treatment, however, is raising alarm bells. 

Seeing in the news a train transporting refugees, unknowingly, to a detainment centre in Hungary, brought to mind images of Jews being sent to concentration camps.  We’ve seen videos of refugees being beaten, finger-printed, and pepper-sprayed.  They’re treated like a plague, and I fear what might come of this.  When the Hungarian prime minister starts talking about their impact on the Christian population of Europe, I wonder if this will lead to even more xenophobic rhetoric and consequent mistreatment.

While Canadian leaders would hopefully never voice such words, they have been guilty of leading an ineffective effort.  By laying on the red tape and not applying enough resources to the situation, Canada has fallen far behind other countries in accepting Syrian refugees.

Based on my own experience with the immigration process, it's apparent the federal government has become less and less interested in accepting new immigrants.  So much so that the provinces have established their own systems to fast-track the immigration process and entice more workers to support their struggling labour markets.

And now I learn that when it comes to refugees, the Canadian government is nowhere near the levels accepted in the past or in other developed nations like Germany.

In 1979 and 1980, under both a Conservative and Liberal federal government, 60,000 refugees from Vietnam were accepted into Canada.  Teams of Canadian officials were sent to the region to process refugee claimants.  Mike Molloy, the Canadian official how oversaw this process, said that it took on average 12 minutes per case!

As a child, I remember the Vietnamese families who became part of our church in the 1980s and who lived with some of our relatives.  They were not seen as a burden, but rather an opportunity to extend compassion and enrich our own lives.

Canada is currently struggling to meet its paltry target of accepting 10,000 refugees from Syria by 2017, having accepted only 2,374 since January 2014.  The reasons, as illustrated in the case of the family of Alan Kurdi, are due to the complex, lengthy process.

The government has made it so, and in some cases, for good reason.  But in these dire situations, as that picture clearly indicates, expediency must rule the day.