That is the most shocking message from an otherwise sound Syrian refugee plan of the government of Canada. Despite the earlier assurances of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Canadian Border Services Agency and the RCMP that they are capable of doing the appropriate security checks on all potential refugees the government has caved in to the irrational fears that young Syrian males may be potential security threats.
These fears may be based on the French police finding in the remains of one of the Paris suicide bombers the passport of a young Syrian migrant alleged to have crossed into Europe through Greece. None of the terrorists killed or arrested in France or Belgium have been migrants or even immigrants. Perpetrators of the butchery in Paris have so far exclusively been 2nd, 3rd or 4rth generation French and Belgian nationals. That in fact raises another question: the one about the integration of the 2nd, 3rd or 4rth generation French and Belgian nationals into those societies but not the one about the unattached straight Syrian males' propensity to be radicalised and violent. In our case similar questions were raised about the radicalisation of many of the Toronto 18 convicts - most of whom were 2nd generation Canadians - and the likes of Zihaf-Bibeau and Martin Rouleau. The truth is we are not doing a good job- certainly not much better than Belgium or France - of integrating all Canadians into a compassionate, harmonious and peaceful whole. We are increasingly living in silos that can be impervious to the Canadian acculturation necessary for meaningful and more immersive participation in the larger society; more on that some other time.
The government says it will take a couple of more months than previously promised to bring all 25000 Syrians into the country and get it right; a good reason to change the deadline. The government is also open to allowing unattached LGBTQs and unattached male civilian victims of torture and the like; another right thing to do.
But why is the government singling out the unattached straight Syrian males in barring them from coming to Canada as refugees particularly when CSIS, RCMP and CBSA had assured us they could screen everyone for security? Were those assurances not comprehensive? If we are barring young straight males from among the Syrian refugees to Canada - none of whom has so far figured in the Paris attacks - are we also imposing a blanket prohibition on the visits to Canada of young straight male French and Belgian nationals, some of whom have been responsible for the bloodshed in Paris?
The government has articulated no sound reason for the blanket exclusion of the unattached straight Syrian males from the refugee plan, especially as they come from the United Nations camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan; the refugees have been there for several years- most of them Arab spring participants victimised by Assad. From the government's apparent silence Canadians are left to surmise for themselves what the government's reasons for such exclusion of the unattached Syrian males might be.
I believe the government of Canada has strayed from its electoral commitment to the spirit of fairness and equality enshrined in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It has given into the misplaced fears of the imagined "male migrants of Paris". In so doing it has pandered to our worst instincts. Pierre Trudeau's Canada should have appealed to the best in us!
