Doing what we believe is right can make us feel morally superior. For example, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau virtue-signalled the surge in undocumented refugees crossing our border from the U.S. since President Trump announced his tough stand on ‘illegal aliens’.

However, the numbers could explode, since over 400,000 American residents may soon lose their Temporary Protected Status and millions are without any legal protection. So sometimes, feel-good policies defy common sense.

Are we really doing the right thing to reward people who flaunt the rules and jump the queue ahead of law-abiding applicants waiting for years to enter Canada? Is it fair, having lured them here, to send some of them back, after much delay and expense? Can our resources cope with the potential influx? Is it in our national interest to create an open-ended security risk?

These questions raise the issue of sanctuary cities. Municipal councils voted to allow migrants entering Canada illegally to receive housing, food bank, library and other services, with no questions asked about their immigration status. Not only that, city law enforcement agencies are ordered not to co-operate with federal and provincial officials regarding those undocumented immigrants.

In February of 2013, Toronto became Canada’s first sanctuary city. Others now include Hamilton, Vancouver, London and Montreal. Calgary, Ottawa, Regina, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg are considering joining the coalition of the self-righteous. The inspiration was American, including the Democratic bastions of New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago, totalling almost three hundred.

Could they all have it wrong? Yes.

Sanctuary cities countenance unlawful behaviour. Normally, it would be indefensible for the most junior level of government to refuse to cooperate with law enforcement officers. Compassion for refugees who gamed the system in preference to those played by the rules is hardly a justification.

ISIS boasts it infiltrated refugee populations in Europe. So there is a security risk when people arrive here without documentation. Moreover, if they later return to the U.S. and commit terrorist attacks, the Americans would naturally react by protecting the border, slowing down $2 billion a day in trade.

Let me dispose of two false comparisons. First, the underground railway. Canadian law was not violated when we did the profoundly moral thing and welcomed escaped slaves from the U.S. to what they referred to as “the Promised Land.” Second, our shameful ‘none is too many’ anti-Jewish immigration policy prior to the Second World War

condemned failed asylum seekers to Nazi terror and death, with no sanctuary.

Helping those who fear deportation to oppressive regimes reflects the best of Canadian values. But people arriving by taxi or pushing shopping carts across the border are more likely seeking economic opportunity rather than fleeing persecution. The tragic plight of the Yazidis is far more dire than refugees crossing the Canada/U.S. border.

Canada will take in 300,000 immigrants this year, over 0.8% of our population, one of the most generous rates in the world. There is general support for our immigration policy, although the attitude toward refugees is somewhat mixed.

In a poll conducted 5 months ago a slim majority favoured current numbers, but 41% believed they were too high. With a global population of 7.5 billion, hundreds of millions would eagerly immigrate to Canada for a better life, if given a chance. Obviously, we cannot open our borders to everyone.

By all means let’s welcome immigrants and refugees. However, if the government lets people to stream across our border unlawfully, it risks eroding public support for a humanitarian refugee policy. It would then only have itself to blame.

Joe Oliver is the former minister of finance.