What Have Canada’s Politicians Promised to Do For Syrian Refugees?

The Syrian refugee crisis has long been out of control, but the past several weeks have solidified the assertion that the richest nations on earth aren't pulling their moral weight, Canada included.

While many of the countries being urged to take in refugees are in Europe, Canada—with its assload of land and natural resources—has seen the issue come to the forefront on the federal election. Since the photo of a Syrian boy who had drowned trying to reach safe land shocked the world and captured international headlines earlier this month, each of Canada's main political parties have taken a (sorta) unique view on how the country should respond to the humanitarian crisis, some four years after it began.

Since release of the photo, Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper's campaign has faced significant criticism from those who say that his administration's lack of action, which falls in line with the general complacency that has plagued the EU and North America over the past four years, has resulted in the refugee crisis hitting a boiling point. A problem that has now landed right on Canada's doorstep.

Harper has said that the main obstacle in bringing in refugees lies in possible security threats they might pose and that, if elected, his government would not allow refugees access to the country prior to going through rigorous security checks. Harper has been resistant to changing the current Conservative policy, ruling out suggestions that he send strategic airlifts to help ferry the refugees to Canada.

Near the outset of the crisis, the Conservatives pledged to resettle just 1,300 Syrian refugees, a number it reached only this year. From there, at the beginning of 2015, it vowed to bring in another 10,000 Syrians by 2018—and is thus far only about a tenth of the way there. Most of those refugees have also been privately-sponsored, with the Government of Canada funding the resettlement of just over 600 Syrian refugees.

On top of this, the Conservatives have resettled more than 20,000 Iraqi refugees.

When the ongoing election campaign kicked off, the Conservatives vowed to bring in another 10,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq, specifically targeting persecuted religious minorities.

Harper has been clear on the campaign trail that he believes the key to solving the refugee crisis lies directly in addressing the issue of terror in the region—with further efforts made on the mission to dismantle IS—as opposed to bringing in more refugees as his opponents have suggested.

The Conservatives have also contributed more than $500 million to help mitigate the impact of the refugee crisis in Europe, and to help humanitarian agencies on the ground in the war-torn area. During the campaign, under pressure to do more, they announced up to $100 million in matching funds—contributing a dollar for every loonie that Canadians donate to approved charities in the area.

"We need to help people who are actually there and can't get away. And part of the way we need to help them is to stop the awful violence that is being directed at them, displacing them and killing them," Harper said.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May has been one of the Conservatives' loudest critics on the file, calling out the current Harper government for doing a shoddy job of addressing the escalating crisis in the Middle East, adding that Canada should be a humanitarian role model.

"We need to get back to the kind of country we were where we welcomed people and we didn't allow a humanitarian crisis to be wrapped up in red tape," May said at a campaign stop earlier this month.

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has suggested that talks between himself and his two main opponents, Harper and NDP leader Tom Mulcair, commence immediately in order to find a middle ground that all parties could agree on.

Although no such talks have taken place yet, Trudeau has said that Canada should take in 25,000 refugees before next year—a number almost 15,000 higher than what was proposed by Harper at a rally last week. Contrary to that of Mulcair's stance, however, Trudeau said that the Liberals would not end Canadian military operations in the region.

Mulcair, who appears to have the most ambitious plans in terms of sheer numbers for the refugee crisis, has put forth two major goals: granting 10,000 Syrians refugee status by the end of the year, with a total of at least 46,000 by 2019—alongside a vow to remove the cap on privately-sponsored refugees—and a complete end to Canadian military operations in Syria and Iraq upon his election as prime minister. Both of these targets are in clear competition with Harper, whose militaristic and security-focused approach have been staples during his campaign.

Both opposition parties have slammed the Conservatives for their vague plan to assist refugees, with the NDP and Liberals laying out their own budgets for aid and plans to appoint designated advisors to handle the situation. The Liberals in particular have also sounded off about the Conservative Party's plan to prioritize religious minorities when selecting refugees for resettlement.

"The government's decision to discriminate against refugees who practise certain religions violates basic Canadian values and is simply unacceptable," wrote Liberal MP John McCallum in a letter to Andrew Bennett, the Canadian Ambassador for Religious Freedom.

Critics calling for more action from the government have come from a variety of sources. Yesterday, former Canadian general and chief of defence Rick Hillier (who was once considered as a successor to Harper himself) went on CBC's Power and Politics with the bold claim that Canada could bring at least 50,000 refugees by the end of the year, a target higher than all three main political parties' goals combined. He also noted that the Canadian Forces should be directly involved in helping to maintain security when resettling refugees and that it would not be as big of an issue as Harper suggested.

"We're used to, as a nation, running big operations around the world—whether that's the Canadian Forces putting 3,000 soldiers on the ground in a war zone 12,000 kilometres from home in a very short period of time or bringing 50,000 war brides back from England in 1955. We can do this kind of thing," he said.

In comparison to much smaller nations, Canada's response to the refugee crisis has been pretty weak. According to Amnesty International, there are around four million Syrian refugees that have been taken in globally, a number that has been handled almost exclusively by the country's neighbours.

Turkey and Lebanon have taken in the most, hosting 1.6 million and 1.2 million refugees respectively. Also carrying the weight of the region are Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt, which have collectively allowed entry to almost one million displaced Syrians. This is a shocking disparity when compared to the measly 2,300 refugees Canada has taken in to this date.

And it's not like Canada is a stranger to welcoming victims of conflict either. Between 1972-1973, Canada took in 7,000 Ismaili Muslims after they were expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin's regime; in 1979-1980, the Canadian government worked to bring 60,000 Vietnamese refugees to the country following the fallout of the Vietnam War; in May of 1999, Canada brought in 250 new Kosovar refugees every day for 21 days. The list could go on.

Both Trudeau and May have stressed the point of Canada's history as a refuge speaking for itself, with a recent appearance by Jean Chretien at a Liberal rally making headlines for his direct callout of Prime Minister Harper's lack of action on the issue. However, it should be noted that Chretien himself has a questionable record on humanitarian issues, mainly due to the deep budget cuts of the 1990s.

Despite where the political leaders stand on the issue, Canadians have made their dissatisfaction clear. In a recent poll, nearly half of Canadians surveyed said they were unhappy with how the government is handling the situation, and a whopping 70 percent said Canada should help clean up the mess.

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