Dear Editor
Twenty years ago my then-teenaged daughter and I toured the United Nations headquarters in Geneva. The guide talked about the work of the UN then asked what countries contributed the most financially to its work.
She gave us the answer: the Scandinavian countries and Canada. We beamed at each other, proud that we came from such a caring country.
Over the years there have been other images that made us proud – the blue-bereted Canadian soldiers who served as peacekeepers with the UN, a young man who had a dream of running across our vast country to raise money for cancer research.
But in the last decade those images have changed. We have had a veterans affairs minister who fell asleep during a presentation by veterans, a prime minister who did not utter a word during the closing ceremony for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
And now we have an image from a beach in Turkey – the body of a little boy who drowned while his family was trying to escape the war in Syria. That little boy could have been safe in Canada if Canada’s Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration had not rejected an application to privately sponsor this family “owing to the complexities involved in refugee applications from Turkey.”
Is that what Canada has become? Sadly, under Stephen Harper’s government we have become a country where administrative complexities matter more than human lives, where every government action is based on how much it costs not on how much it benefits Canadians or needy people throughout the world.
It does not have to be this way. Our current election is not only about deficits and programs and the economy. It is about what kind of country we want Canada to be. Four years ago, Canadians responded to Jack Layton, a politician who talked about things like love, hope and optimism. We need to talk about Canadian values, about compassion, about treating people fairly, about helping those in need in our country and abroad.
When we vote on Oct. 19, we need to remember that little boy on a beach and vote for a government which actually cares what happens to human beings.
Lorraine Shore, Burnaby
