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| Image credit: www.macleans.ca |
As must be the case with many of you reading this, my father and grandfathers fought in the two world wars of the twentieth century. They, and our family, were fortunate that they survived, although my wife has an uncle in her ancestry who lost his life when his ship sank in a naval engagement, and my dad came out of the war minus one lung. Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand were not under direct attack or threat in the same way as were the countries of Europe and Britain. Their armies were fighting not so much for their own motherland as helping defend and liberate their allies and for the values and principles of world liberty and freedom from tyranny.
I find it disappointing, therefore, when I read so often in the social media that people are advancing an anti-refugee position by bemoaning how "our government" can find money to assist refugees but cannot properly assist "our vets". Please, let's keep the two issues separate. By all means, let us lobby for a better deal for our war veterans, but not on the backs of the most vulnerable. This is disingenuous and an insult to the very ones who died in the wars, who died for something far nobler than keeping "our country" free from refugees.
