Yes, You Did!

Did I take it personally? Yes. I took it personally on behalf of 67% Canadians who disagree with the year end deadline imposed by the Canadian government to bring 25000 Syrian refugees into the country.

I was shocked to read your comments in "We Can't Allow 'Security to Mask Racism' in Syrian Refugee Plan" (Huffington Post). You said "What we can't give into, I think is allowing security to mask racism." Sixty seven percent Canadians who disagree with the government's artificial timeline got labelled racist - in one fell swoop. And worse, in the same breath you talked about the presence in Canada of the twin "devils of...Racism and xenophobia". In that instant I became a racist and a xenophobe!

Should we bring in 25000 Syrian refugees? Yes. Should we do it by the year end? Yes if we could do the due diligence and the requisite security checks in that time frame. Should we extend the deadline by two, three or four months, if need be? Yes, we should and no one would accuse Trudeau of reneging on his promise if the deadline changed by a few weeks or months and in the end we had 25000 or more refugees in the country. This is what most Canadians feel. I have publicly supported that view.

We can debate the merits or demerits of the plan yet to be unveiled by the Trudeau government. As of today there are legitimate questions as there were when you made the outrageous comments about 'security masking racism': whether it is possible to do adequate security investigations on all 25000 Syrians in such a short span of time no matter how many resources Canada employs to do so; there is no reliable Syrian data bank we could draw upon. U.S. and some European countries could help; but their security apparatus has failed time and again; even with their cooperation we could only move slowly; United Nations has the means that member countries place at their disposal and in recent years the U.N. has not been adequately funded either. And the debate will go on as it should in a democracy.

But your comments did a disservice to the spirit of debate and democracy. They had the potential and perhaps the effect of suffocating debate. You tarred a whole lot of fair, just, thoughtful and compassionate Canadians with the brush of xenophobia and racism. That is hurtful and truly Un-Canadian!