What's holding us back? Canada can do better on refugee crisis

I opened an e-mail from a friend in my book club the other day. The first half was about upcoming meetings and book titles, but the second half was a proposal.

She wanted to know how many of us might want to join together in sponsoring a family from Syria.  

This is the first time anyone in my personal life has invited me to take part in a sponsorship, and as it turns out, I'm not alone.

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Arisnel Mesidor is the migration and resettlement program co-ordinator for the Mennonite Central Committee in Manitoba, and on Information Radio last Thursday, he said, "Over the past week, I have seen an increase of close to 70 per cent in terms of the number of inquiries I receive every day from people, Manitobans, who are interested in helping with the refugee crisis."

Mesidor also said that for the first time in his decades working in this area, he's been taking calls from individuals and families who want to help directly and aren't part of an organized church group.

He said it's also been a first for MCC to hear from Hutterite colonies reaching out to try and help. Everyone, moved to action for the very first time due to the escalating crisis -- people reaching out, looking for some way, any way to help.

I am not ashamed to admit that I cried watching the news this month for the first time in a very long time.

I'm not heartless, but because part of my job is to confront images of the world's brutal inequality day in and day out, I have become programmed to think about a story before I feel it.

However, sitting at the dinner table watching the news and looking at a little boy face down in the sand, washed up like driftwood was just too much.  

The other image I can't get out of my mind is that of the refugees who suffocated in the back of an abandoned truck; 71 people left for dead as they dared to find a way to live.

On our show on Monday, one of my guests was Oliver Schmidtke, director of the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria.  

Just before he came on the air, I was mentioning the increasing number of Manitobans who are interested in sponsorship.

Then, during the interview, I asked him if he thought Monday's European Union meeting would affect Canada's response.  

Schmitke said, "You told the story about all of these little initiatives to support refugees. Now, that's something we've seen in Germany, how, in a way, civil society has pushed political authorities to do more than maybe they initially wanted to, and I think that we're seeing this in Canada as well where our government has been rather hesitant to support these refugees, and I think it is compassionate Canadians trying to come up with initiatives and putting pressure on the Harper government to do more and come up with a better plan to assist them."

I hope we as Canadians do more.

It doesn't make sense to me that 60,000 refugees from Vietnam could make their way into Canada over an 18-month period in the 1980s, and yet, now we can't come near to that promise.

The current commitment is to settle 11,300 Syrian refugees by 2017. That's a drastic difference.

Peter Showler, former chair of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, spoke with CBC's The National and drew on a more recent example.

He brought up the Kosovo crisis in the 1990s.

Showler said our country sent over an immigration team and brought 5,000 refugees to Canada within four to five months. He thinks we should bring in 10,000 to 20,000 people immediately.

In the meantime, many of the local families MCC is hearing from are being asked to consider sponsoring refugees from other countries besides Syria.

That's in part because the latest government list of refugees who are pre-approved for private sponsorship has just nine Syrian cases on it. You didn't misread that. Nine. My jaw hit the floor last week when that story hit the airwaves on World Report on yet another morning watching crowds of thousands of people clawing over each other to get on buses to safety.

Here at home, refugees who have already arrived from Syria are clawing over yet another bureaucratic problem: a mountain of paperwork.

Ali Amen has been in Winnipeg since last spring, and he is desperately trying to bring his wife here from one of the most dangerous areas in Syria.

Amen, who has gone through two application processes, recently found out his second set of documents was lost.

I asked him how much he fears she may not get out. He simply said, "I don't know," and after a long pause, "I want the government to understand that she could die at any moment."

To be frank, my husband and I have not yet decided if we will be able to help sponsor a refugee family. We are still learning about the process, the commitments and the realities of making that choice.

As a country, however, history has already taught us the reality of making that choice. My question is, what is holding us back?