Dear Editor
“Silence” is the sound of one hand clapping. All three levels of government are definitely doing the right thing helping the Syrian refugees, both Muslim and Christian, who are the innocent victims of rampant and fanatical terrorism. These people need and deserve our help.
However, they are not the only ones who deserve our compassion and aid. Canada has thousands of “domestic refugees.” Our homeless, addicted, jobless, and our mentally ill who (after government failed to provide promised community based mental health facilities) live in tents and seek shelter from the rain in dumpsters.
And of course the most shameful situation of all: Some of the First Nations reservations where people who were removed from their traditional lands still live in conditions rivaling the squalor of the poorest conditions of the third World.
The Syrians definitely deserve our help, but until our governments prod my other hand by putting an equal effort into aiding our own “domestic refugees,” my efforts to applaud their actions must remain “one hand clapping.”
Eric Anderson, Burnaby
