{"id":13522,"date":"2017-03-01T09:00:59","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T17:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=13522"},"modified":"2017-02-28T09:12:42","modified_gmt":"2017-02-28T17:12:42","slug":"canadians-must-welcome-syrian-refugees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2017\/03\/01\/canadians-must-welcome-syrian-refugees\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Space<\/em>: Canadians must welcome Syrian refugees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unless you\u2019re an Australopithecine living in Eastern Africa, you\u2019re an immigrant, which is something that I like to remind those who are against welcoming Syrian refugees into Canada. According to the federal government, Canada has resettled 40,081 Syrian refugees within its borders as of January 29, 2017. My only question is this: where are the rest of them?<\/p>\n

I find it incredibly ironic that people who can so passionately proclaim their love for those that they know can also boldly declare their hate for groups of people different than their own. I\u2019ve recently heard many a diatribe against our refugees and it\u2019s beyond my realm of understanding how such prejudice and negativity can be directed towards the innocent children and adults of Syria, who just want to be able to live in freedom; who want to be able to raise their families with safety, proper education, and healthcare; who simply desire the ability to live beyond the fear of being bombed as they sleep.<\/p>\n

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This story originally appeared in our March 1, 2017 issue.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

People say, \u201cWhat about the extremists? We can\u2019t just be letting anybody into our country.\u201d Which, yes, I agree with. So, we as active Canadian citizens can make a point to push the government to implement an increase of security screening processes.<\/p>\n

Others speak out against the refugees who have committed crimes in Canada, citing them as reasons to not let other refugees in; sure, if the majority of the Syrian refugees were committing crimes every day, then I could see not wanting to grant them access to our country. However, they are not. Nobody says \u201cLet\u2019s get all of the Caucasians in their mid-30s out of Canada\u201d when a crime is committed by someone fitting that description, so let\u2019s not let stereotypes define the way we see people.<\/p>\n

I had a conversation with someone the other day who said, \u201cWhy am I putting my tax dollars toward helping these people who wouldn\u2019t do the same for me? That doesn\u2019t seem right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, I don\u2019t think it can actually be called \u201chelping people\u201d if it\u2019s only being done with the expectation of getting something in return or that they would do the same for you. I don\u2019t believe that a country should be run on a tit-for-tat mentality; I do believe that it\u2019s good to help the Syrian refugees\u2014and anybody else, for that matter\u2014because they need it.<\/p>\n

If you expect compensation then you\u2019re providing a service, not providing help. Our energy and resources should be spent on trying to improve the human race as a whole, not on trying to improve ourselves.<\/p>\n

We, as Canadians, are not free because we are any better; we are free because we happen to have been born in this great country. So, if a little bit of extra cash comes off of my paycheque to help a family escape their war-torn country to find solace and freedom in ours, by all means, please, take my money. That\u2019s a hell of a lot more useful than whatever else I would manage to spend it on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unless you\u2019re an Australopithecine living in Eastern Africa, you\u2019re an immigrant, which is something that I like to remind those who are against welcoming Syrian refugees into Canada. According to the federal government, Canada has resettled 40,081 Syrian refugees within its borders as of January 29, 2017. My only question is this: where are the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-views","category-march-1-2017"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13522"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13568,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13522\/revisions\/13568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}