Little Aylan Kurdi, washed ashore, suddenly refocuses Syrian tragedy: Nahlah Ayed

Chris Alexander has halted his re-election campaign to return to being Immigration minister after the revelation that his department dropped the ball on the refugee status for this family.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/03 ... a-politics

You know, this was not Canada's fault that this kid drowned. His parents chose to take him to sea in a POS boat and then to undertake an illegal journey to Greece.

Canada had nothing to do with that.

I beg to differ. If Canada had approved their refugee request and allowed them to come to Canada to be sponsored by their family already here, they wouldn't think that risky journey was their only option.

If we are dropping bombs in Syria to protect the people caught between two nasty warring factions, it shouldn't be a big stretch to see that they need refuge from those factions. They asked for refuge, we ignored them.

We had a little to do with that.

The kid drowned because he didn't have a lifejacket, even though there were some on the boat.

Maybe ask the father why that is.

Then you'd have a goddam flood of these people coming to Canada and then Scott Walker's wall proposal wouldn't sound so silly after all. It might even make sense to a fair number of .

Then you'd have a goddam flood of these people coming to Canada and then Scott Walker's wall proposal wouldn't sound so silly after all. It might even make sense to a fair number of .

As in another thread, we let in 60,000 Vietnamese refugees, and very little happened. Turns out they are just like the rest of us, good law abiding people. People looking to not fight, and not die, but to protect their families doesn't sound like an invasion force to me.

By my calculations, the number of refugees 'flooding' in to Europe represents 0.07% of the population of Europe. More of a light drip, than a flood.

I'm surprised, because I thought I read some pretty strong anti-Muslim posts from you. (Not of course anything like from the usual suspects.)

Even I have some hesitation about bringing in large numbers of Muslims. Unlike the Vietnamese Chinese, there do seem to be a goodly number of Muslims who are hell bent on converting the country they live in, some using violence. Or compare the Somalians. That has less to do with Islam, than with gangsterism, which many seem to take to. Even the good ones, like the guy who drives a taxi and owns a condo in Toronto, then periodically goes back to be a warlord in Somalia.

Whatever refugees we bring in, we need to spend a lot more money making sure sure they integrate and don't fester in ghettos. Otherwise we can just be bringing in trouble.

The Chinese (ie boat people) do seem to be different. They are certainly not averse to criminal activity, but they know how to keep it on the down low, and seem to prosper wherever they settle. That's why they got kicked out of Vietman, basically Vietnam's Jews.

Speaking of Jews, that's another refugee group that Canada denied initially then allowed. Sure, there were Jewish gangs and Jewish ghettos and Jewish crime families but integration with regular society is inevitable.

The European Jews were pre-integrated. Compare that to say the Somalis, which seem to be having a lot more problems.

I think we should take in genuine refugees, but provide much more supports to make sure they do integrate, don't fester. Some, like the boat people might not need much, other groups that have really had the shit kicked out of them by war, might need more. We'll save money in they end if the refugees don't become problems here.

The Vietnamese and the Muslim refugees are two very different groups.

First, the Vietnamese culture (prior to the French showing up) has an interesting facet to it that in the past thousand years even though the country has been torn by civil war and foreign invaders the common thread is that the people as a whole have strived for something better and they've always been willing to adopt the parts of foreign culture that work for them.

They assimilate with an eagerness that makes them seem almost European.

We have a very significant population of Vietnamese in Sacramento and we are home to the second largest "Little Saigon" in the USA.

Here's my list of complaints about the Vietnamese in Sacramento:



Of note is that after the first wave of refugees from Vietnam in the 1970's and 1980's the children of the refugees and the first generation of Vietnamese-Americans not only succeeded in our public schools, they .

The Vietnamese are not concentrated in ghettoes but have instead dispersed around the area and mixed in with everyone else. We have about 160,000 Vietnamese in the greater Sacramento area.

The first Muslim settlers who came to Lodi in the late 1890's still live in the same cloistered neighborhood as if it were Gaza Strip. A century on this community numbers around 4,000 or so.

The Vietnamese have had a few people end up in Federal prison for trying to support revolts back in Vietnam. About 100 or so of their kids have been in prison for gang activity back in the 1980's and 1990's but the gang activity is over and done.

Saladin (remember him on the board?) was from the Lodi Muslim community and he's now in the Florence ADMAX Muslim community. The upside for him is that about 40 of his neighbors are also there to keep him company.

So what's my point?

The Vietnamese, after two generations are absolutely American and they're an asset to the community. They literally reinvigorated Sacramento's Stockton Blvd. which had been in decline from the 1940's to the 1980's.

The Muslims in Lodi, after about seven generations are still very much Pakistani Muslims and they're actively participating in jihad.

Both communities have had the same opportunities.

Now if you ask me if I'd accept another 100,000 Vietnamese I'd say sure. No problem. They make the very best doughnuts, by the way!

But what about maybe forty Muslims?

No thanks.

Let's not forget;

They came as families, not like this, 99% military aged men.

The boat people were the group of pro-Americans that didn't make it out with the Americans
in 1974.
They were purged after the North won in 1975.

They were completely cut off from home. Most Syrians are showing up with Iphones, tablets,
and plane tickets easy to get.

As Bart mentioned, not many Vietnamese jihadis in that bunch.

For the V4 countries to let in Ukranians who want to leave Crimea ? No problem.


You are comparing apples to oranges.

I'm surprised, because I thought I read some pretty strong anti-Muslim posts from you. (Not of course anything like from the usual suspects.)

You thought incorrectly. I am very much anti-extremest, especially those that tend to kill innocents. Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian . . . I don't discriminate. But I don't believe that every Muslim is an extremest, because I know many good people who are also Muslim and not extremists. And I've posted comments to that effect before.



Integration is key. The Somali problem I think stems from them isolating themselves and thinking that the old county rules apply. Or worse, something they saw on "Law and Order".

And my point is that people were saying the same thing in the 80's about accepting so many Vietnamese. 'Crime would go up'. 'They'd live in ghettos'. 'Cats will become extinct'.

But it didn't happen. Alberta was the first place in North America with a Mosque. It was also the first place in Canada with an all Black community. We have a vibrant Ismali Muslim community that is out at every community event, like the Heritage Festival, collecting donations for the food bank or for Social Services for the community - to help refugees settle in to their new situation, for example.

Your experience with Muslim immigrants is quite a bit different than mine! Our Muslim communities are good neighbours, not guarded enclaves of people who still think they are in Pakistan.

How do we know that Syrian refugees won't also be valued members of the community? The human thing to do would be to let them try.



But families is exactly what I'm talking about here.

The current wave of illegals entering Europe.. very few are coming as family units.

Very, very few.