Michael and Vera Ryan are spearheading an effort through St. Anne’s Catholic Parish to sponsor a refugee family to come to Osoyoos. Michael Ryan is a former Osoyoos town councillor. They are looking for community support. (Richard McGuire photo)
Former Osoyoos councillor Michael Ryan and his wife Vera are spearheading an effort through St. Anne’s Catholic Parish to bring a refugee family to Osoyoos.
The couple is holding a meeting Wednesday night at the Sonora Community Centre to seek the support of other organizations and individuals in the community.
We expect many people in Osoyoos to get on board with this idea, extending Canada’s Warmest Welcome to a family that has had the misfortune to be caught up in Syria’s brutal civil war that has displaced 7.6 million people and killed about a half million people.
Judging, however, from a few comments posted on the Osoyoos Times website in response to last week’s story, the support won’t be unanimous.
Sentiment of some is that it’s not our problem, that we have our own problems or that this family could be a sleeper cell of terrorists.
Canada has been generous in the past to people fleeing from some of the world’s major crises and our country is better for it.
The Ryans have personal experience with helping refugees to get established in Canada after fleeing from ruthless dictator Idi Amin Dada’s Uganda and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.
Canada was also generous when we took in more than 50,000 boat people who fled the Communists in Vietnam.
But there have been some unfortunate failures in the past to welcome people in need. Most notibly, anti-Semitism was rampant in this country at the time that Adolf Hitler was launching his persecution of Jews in Germany, and Canada was resistant to providing sanctuary to fleeing Jews. Many, who could have been taken in by other countries, died in Hitler’s gas chambers instead.
Then there was the Komagata Maru incident in 1914 when Canada turned away 352 Punjabis, who were British subjects, solely because of Asian exclusion laws.
No doubt some of the antipathy to Syrian refugees comes from a similar xenophobia, that has been growing recently – especially fueled by politicians in Canada and the U.S. who are pandering to hate mongers in their drive for votes.
Efforts to bring a refugee family to Osoyoos won’t have any real impact on the crisis in Syria, although it could make a very difference to the lives of one family.
Ultimately, the solution is to help Syria return to stability. And that means helping Syrians through diplomacy or other means to remove the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad, which is responsible for most of the deaths and the breakdown of order.
Although the terrorist group ISIS now poses a serious threat to the region, it was only able to establish itself because of the breakdown of order in Syria and Iraq.
But while the utimate solution is resolving the crisis, that doesn’t take away from the immediate need of finding homes for the millions forced to flee. Europe will take most, but Canada and other countries also need to take a share.
The fear that a refugee family coming here would be an ISIS sleeper cell is way overblown. Refugees are screened both by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees and by the Canadian government.
Those fleeing the Syrian crisis come from a number of ethnic and religious backgrounds.
The Ryans’ effort is largely symbolic, but it is important.
We hope that Osoyoos residents will get behind it and extend the generosity for which we’ve been known in the past.
