Point: We needed to suspend refugees from accessing this country over national security concerns

By: Brad Wall, Premier of Saskatchewan

As I have said an open letter to the Prime Minister that I wrote a little more than a year ago, security must be a number one priority when it comes to refugees. That is why I bravely advocated for a temporary ban of all 25,000 Syrian refugees from entering Canada because of the risk of terrorism. We would resume accepting refugees once I was satisfied that the perceived problems within the government’s refugee program was fixed.

Let me remind you that 129 people died in an attack in Paris from terrorists posing as refugees. Sure, the majority of those displaced people trying to move to Canada are probably fleeing violence and not a threat, but you can’t be so sure. It only takes one with ill-intentions and the results could be devastating. The terrorists are crafty like that, so now is not the time to be politically correct.

Counterpoint: Forget about what I said last year, I really like refugees now

By: Brad Wall, Premier of Saskatchewan

I’m very saddened to see that the United States has moved to ban refugees from seven countries and I would like to remind everyone that Saskatchewan will offer any support by those stranded by the ban. And, while you’re at it, could you forget about what I said above? That never happened.

I can’t tell you how much I love refugees now. We already have 2,000 of them in our province and we’ll continue to support these people because it’s the right thing to do. I wouldn’t want to be a leader that exploits fear and hate so I could score a few points against my political rivals such as the Prime Minister.

I don’t know where US President Donald Trump would get the idea of arbitrarily banning someone just because of their origins.