Saturday, November 21, 2015

Gunter: Risk of taking refugees is real

             Gunter: Risk of taking refugees is real


lorne gunter
By , Postmedia Network
First posted: | Updated:

Prime Minister Trudeau
Prime Minister Trudeau is holding firm on his plan to bring in refugees.
Ok, so four students and two teachers from a pair of local high schools had their trip to Paris next week cancelled by the public school board because it’s too risky in the French capital what with the threat from ISIS.

Meanwhile our prime minister, premier and mayor want to prove just how open-minded, progressive and tolerant they are bringing 1,500 Syrian refugees to Edmonton by December 1 without first checking to see whether there are any ISIS members hiding among them.

The risks in Paris are small, or at least smaller than they were a week ago before the six terror attacks that took 129 lives.

French and Belgian authorities have conducted scores of raids on suspected ISIS cells and other jihadi sympathizers. They have made dozens of arrests and seized large quantities of guns, ammunition and explosives.

But the school board has decided to err on the side of caution. Better safe than sorry.
However, the safety of our young people is also one of the concerns with bringing refugees here in haste without adequate background checks.

Young people at a concert and at cafes were disproportionately targeted by ISIS radicals in France last Friday. So how come it’s sensible for school trustees to cancel school trips to France, but it is un-Canadian, uncaring, even bigoted in the minds of our federal, provincial and local leaders not to exercise a similar degree of caution over refugees?

Defenders of this mad rush to accept 25,000 refugees are now claiming it’s untrue that the Syrians have not been screened. The United Nations has screened them in camps in the Middle East.

But the UN doesn’t have adequate means of performing security checks. It doesn’t have access to Syrian intelligence records, or even to American, Russian, British and other nations’ security files.
United Nations screening consists of little more than humanitarian workers’ best guesses. Their in-depth interviews are mostly, “Um, are you a terrorist?”

Is there a high degree of certainly that terrorists will be hidden among the 1,500 refugees coming to Edmonton or the 800-1,000 to Calgary or the 25,000 coming to Canada? Maybe not.

But is it possible? Of course. And the greater Ottawa’s rush to bring in large numbers, the greater the risk that CSIS, the RCMP and immigration officials will miss a cell.

After their attempt to blow up British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984 missed, the IRA issued a statement taunting security forces by reminding them, “Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always.”

That’s the point.

It’s not enough that the risk is low-ish from taking in a large number of refugees at hyper-speed. The risk is real.

There are no guarantees of perfect safety in life. We can never be 100 per cent sure the refugees we take are all peaceful or will grow up to be tolerant, multicultural, law-abiding, democracy-loving Canadians.

But why would we wilfully increase the risk of a terror attack in Canada? Why would we make it easier for ISIS, which has vowed to attack us?

On Tuesday, six Syrians carrying stolen Greek passports were arrested in Honduras on their way to sneak into the U.S., possibly with the intent of carrying out attacks.

CFB Edmonton, where Edmonton’s refugees will be housed was home to many of Canada’s soldiers who fought the Taliban and other Muslims in the Middle East. It could easily be an ISIS target.
And last February, other terrorists named West Edmonton Mall as a high-profile target.

Why do the jihadis a favour by rushing the process just so our progressive politicians can feel good about themselves and their broadmindedness?


lorne.gunter@sunmedia.ca

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