Canada ramping-up for challenge of extensive mental health needs of Syrian refugees

10/28/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Since we are on the subject of the costly health needs of Syrian refugees (Netherlands in previous post), here is some news about how Canadian mental health providers are getting ready for the huge influx of mostly Syrian Muslims expected to be settled from coast to coast in the coming year.
From michaelcolborne.com:

Doctors in a handful of clinics across Canada are preparing for the arrival of many thousands of refugees fleeing the war in Syria. So far only a few have arrived, but more are expected as part of the new government’s commitment to settle 25,000 Syrian refugees through 2016.

“The most significant part of our practice is dealing with mental health issues,” says Dr. Meb Rashid, who works at the Crossroads Clinic, a refugee clinic in Toronto, and is currently working with Lifeline Syria to establish clinics for the expected influx of Syrian refugees in Toronto.

[….]

Meeting the health needs of thousands of Syrian refugees will not be easy, Rashid admits. “It’s really the scope of this. If we’re looking at tens of thousands of people, we haven’t seen those types of numbers before.” As well, he and other doctors are concerned that the current lack of full health coverage for privately sponsored refugees under the Interim Federal Health Program will make it difficult to meet Syrian refugees’ health needs.

Despite this, Rashid and his colleagues across the country, from Toronto to Vancouver to Halifax — where a new clinic for refugees has just opened — say they are ready for the challenge. “We’re starting to ramp things up,” says Rashid.

Continue reading here.
New readers might be interested to know that we have an entire category entitled ‘health issues’ where we have 284 previous posts about refugee and immigrant health archived.
All of our posts on Canada are archived here (159 previous posts!).

Canada: Libs want 25,000 Syrians (mostly Muslims) admitted before the end of 2015!

10/26/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve not posted much from north of the border recently, but Canadian readers continue to be at the top, or nearly at the top, of the list of faithful readers from around the world who visit RRW regularly, see here yesterday.

We knew as soon as we heard the news about Justin Trudeau being elected Prime Minister last week that this meant more Muslim migration to Canada.
What is interesting about this news from the National Post is that it dances around a critical issue that effects both Canada and the US and that is that we are allowing the UNITED NATIONS to almost exclusively choose our refugees. That means that in the case of the Syrians, they will come from UN camps that house mostly Sunni Muslims.
97% of the Syrians who entered the US in FY2015 were Muslims chosen by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Thus even if Canada wanted to select truly persecuted Christians and/or Yazidis, they have no system in place to do so in large numbers—neither do we in the US! We have given that power to the UN!
From the National Post (emphasis is mine):

TORONTO — As the Liberal government gears up to meet its promise to bring 25,000 government-sponsored Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of 2015, experts say time may be too short to effectively settle refugees and navigate security concerns.

“The numbers are not difficult numbers. The timeline is a difficult timeline,” said Naomi Alboim, a Queen’s University professor and former deputy minister of citizenship in Ontario.

With more than four million Syrian refugees in need, the first order of business will be identifying those to bring to Canada. Government-sponsored refugees are typically referred to Canada by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which confirms their refugee status and passes on the most urgent cases. Canadian visa officers then review their claims, and put refugees through security checks and health screenings. The process can take months, if not years.

[….]

These alternative approaches require Canada to pick refugees and decide whether to focus on groups that have been especially brutalized by ISIS, such as Syria’s Yazidi minority, or on everyone fleeing the dangerous civil war, said Guidy Mamann, an immigration lawyer based in Toronto.

“Normally, in refugee law, we are looking to protect those who are persecuted, those who suffer the greatest,” he added.
But Canada, which relies on UNHCR for refugee referrals, has no system for picking refugees by itself. In addition, most Syrian refugees are outside of camps, making them harder to identify.

Continue reading here.

Canada to take 10,000 Syrian refugees, but not necessarily UN-chosen ones!

09/20/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Back in December 2014, Canada said they would accept Christian (and other minority) Syrians over Muslims and all hell broke loose. They were beaten over the head in the media by the human rights industrial complex. So, I’m wondering if this proposed new policy on Syrian refugees does the same thing by loosening Canada’s apron strings to the UNHCR.

Conservative leader Stephen Harper takes part in the Globe and Mail leaders' debate Thursday, September 17, 2015 in Calgary.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward — Harper dared to reference “old-stock Canandians” in recent debate. Conservative leader Stephen Harper takes part in the Globe and Mail leaders’ debate Thursday, September 17, 2015 in Calgary.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/09/17/old-stock-canadians-harper-debate-economy_n_8156190.html

Just a reminder, in the US we have completely given over all responsibility to the UNHCR to choose our Syrian refugees and they are choosing mostly Muslim Syrians from their Muslim-populated camps.
Here is the news at the Wall Street Journal:

TORONTO—The Canadian government said Saturday that it will accelerate the processing of Syrian refugees to resettle 10,000 in the country by September 2016, more than a year ahead of its original target, as it contends with criticism over its response to the resettlement crisis.

In January, the Canadian government said it would resettle 10,000 Syrians over a three-year period. But faced with mounting pressure to work faster, the ruling Conservative Party now plans to complete the process 15 months earlier by designating all Syrians who have fled their home country as “prima facie” refugees. That means Canada will no longer require proof of official United Nations documentation to accept them as refugees, shortening the review process and broadening the pool of refugees Canadian groups can sponsor, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander announced at a press conference.

I read that to mean that Canadian immigration authorities could pluck Christians and other religious minority refugees from where ever they are hiding right now, not having to pick from an approved UNHCR list.

[….]

At the same time, Mr. Alexander stressed security screening of refugees remains a government priority.

Election year issue!

The incumbent Conservatives are in the throes of a tight three-way election campaign ahead of an Oct. 19 vote. Polling suggests its response to the refugee crisis, while facing heavy criticism among his political rivals, hasn’t played a role in eroding support.

[….]

Mr. Harper has said there is no “refugee-based solution” to the conflict in Syria, and added Western allies must plan for a long-term military presence in the region to defeat Islamic State. He’s also warned of the security risk to Canada of immediately taking on additional refugees without proper security screening.

Unlike the US 2016 Presidential debate this past week, in Canada they actually uttered the words “Syrian refugees.”

In a party leaders’ debate this past week, Mr. Harper accused his political rivals of having a “reckless approach” on Syrian refugees, as they are content to “throw open our borders and let in hundreds of thousands of people without any kind of security check.” His main rivals accused Mr. Harper of fear mongering, and demanded he stop using the issue of security to limit Canada’s role.

I see the US resettlement contractors and the media latching on to the 10,000 Syrians in one year figure and using it to say that the US can take many more than 10,000 without noticing the distinction being made by this policy that would, by taking mostly Christians, reduce the security concerns greatly for Canada (although it will still be expensive!).

Dead toddler's father wanted to go to Europe to get new teeth!

09/07/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Invasion of Europe…..it isn’t going to end soon!

The world has been riveted by the sad photo of a dead toddler on a Turkish beach. In fact, that very photo, being used as propaganda, may ultimately be responsible for the destruction of Europe as we know it and ultimately for the resettlement of 65,000 or more! Syrian refugees (mostly Muslims) in your towns in the coming months.

father of drowned boy — The disgusting man who risked his family’s life to get his teeth fixed for free in Europe!

Now, here comes none other than the Wall Street Journal telling us that the family was safe in Turkey and that the selfish father wanted to get a new set of teeth in Europe.
But, first here is ‘Bare Naked Islam’ with a more colorful telling (hat tip: Joanne):

The little Syrian boy drowned because his father wanted to get a full set of teeth implants for free in Europe.

The images of the toddler’s lifeless body on a Turkish beach have reverberated across the globe, stirring public outrage and embarrassing political leaders as far away as Canada, where authorities had rejected an asylum application from the boy’s relatives. (They were NOT fleeing Syria, they were safe in Turkey, so no reason for Canada to take them in)

So, this Syrian family, the Kurdis, was safe and secure in a Turkish town for 3 years after leaving Syria. They were well fed, sheltered and so on. Then the father of the family, Abdullah, was like “oh man, I need new teeth. These Turks are not going to give me squat. Let’s all get in a rickety boat and go to Greece, where we’ll find some good-hearted Christians to give me a new set of teeth implants…for FREE”

From the Wall Street Journal:

From his hospital bed on Wednesday, Mr. Kurdi told a Syrian radio station that he had worked on construction sites for 50 Turkish lira (roughly $17) a day, but it wasn’t enough to live on. He said they depended on his sister, Tima Kurdi, who lived in Canada, for help paying the rent.

Ms. Kurdi, speaking Thursday in a Vancouver suburb, said that their father, still in Syria [presumably still safe!—ed], had suggested Abdullah go to Europe to get his damaged teeth fixed and find a way to help his family leave Turkey. She said she began wiring her brother money three weeks ago, in €1,000 ($1,100) amounts, to help pay for the trip. [to pay people smugglers!—ed]

Shortly after, she said her brother called her and said he wanted to bring his whole family to Europe, as his wife wasn’t able to support their two boys alone in Istanbul.

“If we go, we go all of us,” Ms. Kurdi recounted him telling her. She said she spoke to his wife last week, who told her she was scared of the water and couldn’t swim.

“I said to her, ‘I cannot push you to go. If you don’t want to go, don’t go,’” she said. “But I guess they all decided they wanted to do it all together.”

SOB!
Do you think this truth will ever get out to all those who are using that sad photo for their political ends?
For more on the ‘Invasion of Europe’ go here.

Canada rejecting "refugees" from Malta

07/06/2015 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Why is this so interesting to us?

African-migrants-boat-to-Europe-620x412 — If you think the migrant boats arriving on Malta don’t affect you, think again! We are taking some of Malta’s illegal aliens off their hands.

….because Canada is apparently attempting to make the point that international refugee law requires legitimate asylum seekers to seek asylum in the first safe country they enter.
The island nation of Malta is safe and therefore offers a “durable solution” to those seeking asylum. Although we have sympathy for Malta and the Maltese people, there is no reason for a western nation like Canada or the US to resettle refugees from a safe country.
Here is the Independent:

A number of refugees in Malta who have been sponsored to move to Canada are being prevented from emigrating since Canada’s immigration authorities consider their stay in Malta to be a “durable solution” to their situation, Canadian media is reporting.

Remember readers that ever since the Bush Administration, the US State Department has been illegally in our view scooping up hundreds of those mostly African (mostly Somali!) illegal alien boat people who manage to get across the Mediterranean to Malta, transform them into refugees and move them to your towns and cities. See most recently here.
And, here, we learned that some of the Malta boat people went to South Carolina.
We have dozens and dozens of posts on this outrage. Go here for our complete Malta archive. And, here, for our ‘Invasion of Europe’ series.