September 2014.
As it has been reported by several news outlets by now, Syria is going through the worst refugee crisis the world has faced since World War II.
A tyrannical government has forced Syrians to flee from their homes and into surrounding countries like Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. But since the death of Aylan Kurdi, a 2 year old boy who washed ashore in a coast of Turkey after drowning while trying to leave Syria with his family , international attention has been brought up about the crisis they are going through.
“You have 11 million people displaced. 7 of them being in Syria, and another 4 that are displaced outside,” said Abd Alfatah Twackle, the Imam of theLondonMuslim Mosque.
European countries like Germany, Switzerland and others are accepting thousands of refugees to try and help the Syrian people. In Canada’s case, an argument could be made that they are not helping as much as they could.
“Canada is supposed to be allowing a target number of 10,000 refugees, this was stated by the UN. So far, we have let in less that 2,000, approximately 1,300 refugees so we need to be opening our houses and our arms to these people,” said Judy, a political sciences major at Western and a member of the Syrian Canadian Council.
However, the way Prime Minister Stephen Harper sees it, Canada is doing enough to help Syrians. Military intervention is the way Harper plans to help Syria, and though some people may not agree with his ways, he is sticking to his guns.
The interesting part of this is how it will affect the upcoming federal elections in which Harper will go agaisnt NDP’s Tom Mulcair and against Liberal candidate Justin Trudeau.
“This feeds right into things the NDP and Liberals like to talk about, but the Prime Minister is in a though spot,” said political commentator and Fanshawe’s politics teacher Matt Farrell.
“It’s really a no-win situation for him,” said Farrell. That might be because according to Farrell, he can’t really do the politically correct thing and just agree to bring more refugees here because a significant part of his voters wouldn’t agree with that statement.
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