Oh, I just love it when concern for ‘getting things right’ only matters after an election.  During an election, when every other party called for a slower influx of Syrian refugees, the Liberals cried that the rest of us lacked compassion.  ‘Oh ya,’ they said, ‘I’ll see your 10,000 refuguees and raise it to 25,000.  And of course, we’re going to get them into Canada before the end of the year.  It’s totally possible.  Of course, we know that Harper couldn’t even bring 3000 over this year, but that’s because he’s evil and a racist.’  And so begins the Liberal narrative.

Giving a high number, underestimating the cost, and preying on the body of a child washed ashore in Turkey, an election promise has now been broken, and I find it pretty disgusting.  Let’s be clear: Everybody knew the number was too ambitious and the timeline to get the refugees here was too short.  The media and voters are now incensed that Prime Minister Trudeau’s concrete and specific promise has been broken when we should have done more during the election to expose such a clear overreach in policy.  The 10,000 refugee by the end of the year policy was what the NDP promised.  Harper, too, once held that 10,000 by year end target, but he wasn’t going to meet it. The Liberals branded all of this a lack of ambition for Canada.  Now, they too seem to lack that ambition.

True to form, many conservative voices haven’t been flattering in all of this either.  I’ve seen many conservative commentators on social media and in popular press articles discuss Minister Chrystia Freeland’s appearance on Bill Maher’s program regarding ISIL, Islam, and Paris.  I’ve included the video below.  I’m not moved by Freeland’s defence, but I find Maher’s perspective to be completely off side.

Let me say a few things clearly and emphatically before I get to the issue of accepting refugees.  Terrorism is a threat.  People have a right to be scared.  We also have a right to question our political leaders and challenge them to do what’s right for the people of Canada.  However, if we’re siding with Bill Maher here, we’re in trouble.  Maher’s underlying point is that the ideals of Islam are incompatible with the Western way of life.  The great irony, of course, is that millions of Muslims  live among us everyday and are part of the Western way of life.  True, some might not like every part of it, but I’ve also heard from devout Christians who have their gripes about society going in the opposite direction of their preferred ideas too.  It’s a wonderful thing to be entitled to an opinion on these things, which is the price we pay for living in Canada – not a bad deal!  We cannot forget that in countries that do permit egregious violations of rights, it’s sometimes hard to separate the state’s power with religious values, and just because the state permits certain egregious violations of rights, there is never unanimity on its appropriateness, which is why some people flee.  These are not pluralistic democracies like we’re accustomed to.

Some of you keen people might be saying, ‘well ya, evangelicals might have gripes, but they don’t resort to violence to settle the score.’ This is true, of course, because such people haven’t been radicalized.  However, it’s not as if we’ve never seen Christians become radicalized.  I could give examples, but the point is that we do not consider evangelicals to be radicals. Radicals are radicals, whichever religion they follow, and they must be dealt with separately if they try to harm our way of life.

ISIS, of course, is in a completely different league.  They have tried, with some success, to control vast swaths of land to promote their radicalized ways.  They use these safe havens to recruit and further indoctrinate other potential radicals.  They do this in the name of Islam, but it is a version of Islam that most Muslims reject as being too extreme.  To use ISIS’s radicalized worldview and project it onto all Muslims is not only what ISIS wants the world to believe, but it is also so completely wrong.

If you don’t believe me, go visit your local Mosque as I have.  Yes, some of their customs are different than what I am used to, but the same is true for a lot of other religions too.  Yet, as I watched and listened, I came to the realization that what Muslims were praying for weren’t much different than what I pray for: peace, good health, family, community, help for those less fortunate, and freedom.

To put it simply, Muslims come here in pursuit of liberty.  They come to this country because we are supposed to respect religious freedom.  This isn’t the case in other parts of the world.  They flee countries that are even run by other Muslims because their freedom in those countries is limited – that even in Muslim-ruled countries, it’s possible that there is inter denominational conflict where Muslims are persecuting other Muslims.

Shifting back to the refugee crisis, did anybody ever ask why there might be so many Syrian refugees? Some Syrian refugees aren’t Syrian or even Muslim.  Some have been displaced from within Syria, or they have had to flee other Muslim countries, or they have been caught up in the Arab-Israeli conflict.  They cannot go back home for fear of death.  All are displaced.  Let’s understand that refugees are fleeing from tyrants who have chased them from their homes.  Refugees are not terrorists.  They just want despotic governments to leave them alone.  They want peace and freedom.  We have that in abundance here, and we should welcome them.

It’s perfectly legitimate to question whether accepting 25,000 refugees in a short time frame is possible.  Even with the new timeline, it’s going to be tough to meet these targets.  We do need to appeal to a process in order to get people here.  We want to make sure the refugees we accept are legitimate, and we also need to make sure supports are in place to help them integrate into Canada.

Nevertheless, our Canadian values will always offer a beacon of hope for people throughout the world. That’s why so many immigrants from all over the world have come here, and we’re a better country for it.  Freedom, respect for natural rights, democracy and capitalism are the greatest threat to radicals and promoting these values is the best way to fight oppression.  That’s why ISIS is so intent on attacking our way of life, and that’s why we should remain intent on defeating their radicalized worldview.