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Saturday, December 19, 2015

Letter to the Editor, Toronto Star Dec 17/15


Not All Refugees are Equal
Our nation’s collective response to the Syrian refugees is a sigh of relief. Nine years of a mean-spirited national refugee policy created a “health poverty” that left reasonable, fair-minded and humanitarian Canadians yearning for better.
Syrian refugees have dominated the searing images reaching our living rooms. They made us cry. The media coverage has helped galvanize our collective generosity. Canada is a nation of pioneers. Wave after wave of immigrant and refugee have built our nation. What defines Canadians most is that we are from different places. It is in our DNA to respond. Why wouldn’t we.
Bana came here too. She was escaping female genital mutilation in her homeland. Half of these girls die. They bleed to death on stone slabs. Her mother risked that Mediterranean Sea to bring her daughter to Canadian safety. Bana has bullet wounds too. She is a child. Her father was killed by ISIS thugs called Boko Haram. Her mother and uncle brought her to us – in Canada. We are ready to provide, to feel better. After all, if it is Bana’s mother’s job to risk that sea, to bring her child to safety, then when she is here, it is our job to help her. No argument there.
So, Go Canada Go!
By the way, did I mention that a year ago Canada turned Bana and her mother down for any access to health care or status? Did I mention they still have neither? Sadly for them, they are not from Syria, but from sub-Saharan Africa.
Did I mention they have no chance to obtain OHIP? Bana, her mother and her sister now live in a shelter in Scarborough. If their humanitarian application fails they will be deported. They are “the others” now so starkly left out of our response.
There was no politician at the airport to greet them. Where should Canada draw its generosity and humanitarian lines?

Dr. Paul Caulford, The Canadian Centre for Refugee and Immigrant Healthcare, Toronto

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