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Would Canadians have more US border problems under a Republican govern


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Hmm. My concern is that our trade relations and dependency on access to US markets might impede our future goodwill and acceptance of reffugees, and my hope was that our desire to do the right thing and give refuge to those fleeing violence would take precedence over out desire to maintain easy access to US markets. I see from many of these posts that the desire to maintaining an open border is greater than the desire to welcome reffugees. I'm disappointed.

This is a valid but narrow perspective given Canada's larger military and economic interests/actions that directly and indirectly impact refugees and human rights around the world. Integration with the U.S. economy is only one consideration among several competing domestic and international priorities, some of which have actually contributed to the number of refugees in other nations.

Canadians have already expressed disapproval of economic refugees when they take the form of lower paid workers (e.g. TFWs), for obvious reasons.

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This is a valid but narrow perspective given Canada's larger military and economic interests/actions that directly and indirectly impact refugees and human rights around the world. Integration with the U.S. economy is only one consideration among several competing domestic and international priorities, some of which have actually contributed to the number of refugees in other nations.

Canadians have already expressed disapproval of economic refugees when they take the form of lower paid workers (e.g. TFWs), for obvious reasons.

I'd be interested to hear about those competing Canadian priorities that you reckon have added to the refugee population.
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This is a valid but narrow perspective given Canada's larger military and economic interests/actions that directly and indirectly impact refugees and human rights around the world. Integration with the U.S. economy is only one consideration among several competing domestic and international priorities, some of which have actually contributed to the number of refugees in other nations.

Yes, I realize that Canada's conforming to US immigration policy is but one instance of how we contribute to human rights abuses and contribute to the number of refugees and internally displaced people in the world. I live and work as a human rights defender in Colombia, with which Canada has signed a FTA despite government complicity in massacres, direct involvement in extrajudicial killings, and the internal displacement of 5.5 million people (second only to Syria). Here too trade takes precedence over human rights and land and resource grabs by, amongst others, the Canadian mining industry. Canada is also wilfully blind to Saudi Arabian internal human rights abuses and bellicose interventions in neighbouring countries because they have become a major purchaser of Canadian-made light armored vehicles. And those are only the tip of a very large and growing iceberg...

We can add to this list our contributions to the creation of climate refugees and economic refugees. Canadians themselves are being colonized by a corporatocracy that exercises control over, not only the resources we stole from first nations, but the ability to implement social or environmental policies that threaten the profits of our corporate landlords. Our politicians, whom we seem to have granted power of attorney, have sold us out.

Edited by SRV
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Yes, I realize that Canada's conforming to US immigration policy is but one instance of how we contribute to human rights abuses and contribute to the number of refugees and internally displaced people in the world. I live and work as a human rights defender in Colombia, with which Canada has sined a FTA despite government complicity in massacres, direct involvement in extrajudicial killings, and the internal displacement of 5.5 million people (second only to Syria). Here too trade takes precedence over human rights and land and resource grabs by, amongst others, the Canadian mining industry.

Yes, Canadian mining interests are one of the biggest offenders. The resulting humanitarian aid and refugee quotas are just part of the price of doing business. Sanctions, arms sales, and military interventions round out the mix, regardless of ruling party. Back home, the feel-good appeal of high visibility refugee and immigrant landings provides very effective political cover.

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Hmm. My concern is that our trade relations and dependency on access to US markets might impede our future goodwill and acceptance of reffugees, and my hope was that our desire to do the right thing and give refuge to those fleeing violence would take precedence over out desire to maintain easy access to US markets. I see from many of these posts that the desire to maintaining an open border is greater than the desire to welcome reffugees. I'm disappointed.

If you really desired to help refugees you would be campaigning for us to spend more on the refugee camps in the third world which harbor MILLIONS of refugees. The money were are spending on a comparative lucky few to bring them here and sustain them for years in a (to them) completely foreign land would help sustain hundreds of thousands of refugees over there. For every refugee we put into a low income housing unit here there are fifteen shivering in the mud somewhere we could be feeding, clothing and putting in warm tents with blankets over in Turkey or Lebanon.

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Yes, I realize that Canada's conforming to US immigration policy is but one instance of how we contribute to human rights abuses and contribute to the number of refugees and internally displaced people in the world.

Not demonstrated as fact. Human rights abuses are done by foreign players abroad in search or defense of power. Their struggles are what contribute to internally displaced people and refugees, not Canada's immigration policy.

I live and work as a human rights defender in Colombia, with which Canada has sined a FTA despite government complicity in massacres, direct involvement in extrajudicial killings, and the internal displacement of 5.5 million people (second only to Syria).

Colombia has a democratically elected government, but is unfortunately beset by a long running left wing insurgency, as well as drug cartels. None of that has anything to do with Canada.

Here too trade takes precedence over human rights

Trade means money to pay for infrastructure, not to mention giving people jobs so they can feed themselves.

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If you really desired to help refugees you would be campaigning for us to spend more on the refugee camps in the third world which harbor MILLIONS of refugees. The money were are spending on a comparative lucky few to bring them here and sustain them for years in a (to them) completely foreign land would help sustain hundreds of thousands of refugees over there. For every refugee we put into a low income housing unit here there are fifteen shivering in the mud somewhere we could be feeding, clothing and putting in warm tents with blankets over in Turkey or Lebanon.

This would certainly help existing refugees but if you desired to do something really and truly effective, like preventing refugees in the first place, you'd mount the Mother-of-all BDS movements against nations that are funneling weapons and reasons to use them into the regions refugees are coming from.

We should start by stopping our own companies first. Otherwise we'd look pretty stupid.

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This would certainly help existing refugees but if you desired to do something really and truly effective, like preventing refugees in the first place, you'd mount the Mother-of-all BDS movements against nations that are funneling weapons and reasons to use them into the regions refugees are coming from.

Oh come on. You know that we were building some pretty good firearms more than a century ago, right? I know that third world technology is lower than ours, but do you honestly think they can't build their own guns, grenades and mortars? Pakistan has nukes. You think they can't build machineguns? Most of the rabble involved in world conflicts seem to be equipped with AK-47s, the weapon of choice for revolutionaries. The world was flooded with them even before former Soviet states in Europe dumped theirs onto the market and went for western gear.

As for reasons to use them. Did you see my posting on the 400 million Hindus killed during the Islamic invasions? Do you remember how many people were slaughtered in Rwanda by people with clubs and machetes and torches? Do you know there have been ongoing, violent revolutionary movements in places like the Philippines, Indonesia and Columbia for DECADES?

They don't need us to provide them with weapons or reasons to kill.

Edited by Argus
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And yet we're all to willing to provide them anyway.

To the richer ones we think we can influence. Or to ones who we see as being better than the alternatives. The Saudi government, to use one example, as despicable as it is, is almost certainly far better than any alternative likely to take power there, not just for stability, or for oil interests, but for the people living there.

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Who or what takes power is for the people living there to determine

What a lovely thought. It usually doesn't work that way, though. Who or what takes power will be the most ruthless people with the best military instincts and the best ability to destroy their opponents. The ordinary people will have little say in the matter.

and our being there interferes with that

Given the lack of realism of your earlier statement, I don't think so.

The bottom line is we don't need to be there.

Sometimes we do.

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Not demonstrated as fact. Human rights abuses are done by foreign players abroad in search or defense of power. Their struggles are what contribute to internally displaced people and refugees, not Canada's immigration policy.

I meant to say that Canada conforming to US immigration policy was but one instance of how we negatively impact refugees, and that Canada's disregard for human rights in other countries contributes to the creation of refugees. I did not mean to imply Canada's immigration policy creates refugees. Canada's trade relations and even diplomatic relations with known human rights abusers makes them complicit in creating a climate of impunity and human rights violations that contribute to the problem.

Colombia has a democratically elected government, but is unfortunately beset by a long running left wing insurgency, as well as drug cartels. None of that has anything to do with Canada.

Colombia dis hold elections, and the current Santos government as well as the previous Uribe government has had scandal after scandal, including Para-politics (the collaboration of all levels of government with right-wing paramilitary death squads that massacred 100s of thousands and displaced 5.5 million), false positives (the extrajudicial killing of tens of thousands of civilians which are postmortem dressed up as insurgents and presented as guerrillas who died in combat), and countless corruption charges involving the embezzlement of public money. The deadly suppression of dissent and land0grabs are what have paved the way for Canadian and other investors to gain access to Colombian resources. Despite national and international campaigns to have Canada refrain from signing a FTA with Colombia until there was and end to these abuses and restitution for the victims Canada went ahead and signed an agreement anyway. All this is well documented.

Furthermore, state security forces are used, not to protect the local population, but rather the corporations that have come to pillage local resources and destroy the local environment. (This happens all over the world, including in Canada itself.)

Trade means money to pay for infrastructure, not to mention giving people jobs so they can feed themselves.

Trade does mean investment in infrastructure --infrastructure designed to extract and bring Colombia's national wealth to the nearest port. These mega-projects typically involve hydro electric damns, huge quantities of water which becomes contaminated, and only create jobs for about twenty percent of the people they displace. The other 80% of the local population typically become dispossessed economic refugees and victims of cultural genocide. (The destruction of cultures is not the intended objective, but a known and predictable inevitable outcome when you systematically dispossess campesino, Afro and indigenous Colombians of the land that feeds them both physically and culturally.)

Colombia is not an anomaly. I only use it as an example because it is the place I am most familiar with. (I have spent the better part of the last ten years living in Colombia.

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To the richer ones we think we can influence. Or to ones who we see as being better than the alternatives. The Saudi government, to use one example, as despicable as it is, is almost certainly far better than any alternative likely to take power there, not just for stability, or for oil interests, but for the people living there.

I am by no means an expert on the ME, although I have spent a couple of years in Iraq. But are you telling us that we are in bed with the Saudis because our government has carefully studied the alternatives and arrived at the conclusion that the current regime, 'despicable as it is', would be more respectful of human rights than whomever is likely to replace them?!! That may be an argument for why we shouldn't have invaded Afghanistan and why the US shouldn't have invaded Iraq, but its not an argument for getting into bed with the Saudis. Isn't it simply that we prefer pro-West and pro-US regimes who squelch potentially anti-West Arab Springs and civil nonviolent attempts to regain their freedom wherever they find them? Is it really democracy and freedom that we are promoting and exporting or economically beneficially trade relations often at at the cost of freedom and democracy? Harper says if we didn't sell the Saudis weapons somebody else would, so it might as well be us. Despicable as it is, at least that's a little more honest than the usual argument that gets trotted out, which goes something like: "We have more influence over a trading partner than someone we have no relations with", which sounds more like a ludicrous argument for buying products from pimps, thieves and drug-dealers to gain 'influence' over their behaviour!

I am not suggesting we invade Saudi Arabia. I am just suggesting we end the hypocrisy and be consistent about defending human rights!

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....I am not suggesting we invade Saudi Arabia. I am just suggesting we end the hypocrisy and be consistent about defending human rights!

So called "human rights" were co-opted to achieve economic and geo-political objectives by Canada and other western nations decades ago. The Canadian brand is/was called "Responsibility to Protect © ". They are but a thin veneer and cover story for other motives. Rwanda exposed the inner workings of these policies.

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If you really desired to help refugees you would be campaigning for us to spend more on the refugee camps in the third world which harbor MILLIONS of refugees. The money were are spending on a comparative lucky few to bring them here and sustain them for years in a (to them) completely foreign land would help sustain hundreds of thousands of refugees over there. For every refugee we put into a low income housing unit here there are fifteen shivering in the mud somewhere we could be feeding, clothing and putting in warm tents with blankets over in Turkey or Lebanon.

To a large extent I agree with you, at least insofar as we need to find real solutions to a very real and growing problem. The thing would be to prevent the creation of refugees, be they climate, economic or violence refugees. It was to that end that I moved to Colombia, which is second only to Syria in terms of displaced and dispossessed peoples (5.5 million). There's that old parable about upstream -- downstream. Downstream you are fishing bodies out of the river; resuscitating, providing medical aid to, feeding, clothing or burying the bodies you fish out of the river. But sooner or later you end up asking what is going on upstream: Who is throwing all these people into the river?

These days my upstream presentations in Canada could be paraphrased as: "I have discovered the enemy! It is us! Give me some money and I'll find out more." The world we live in has fallen into the hands of a monolithic global corporatocracy, and her resources commodified and sold in a single global marketplace. Those who still enjoy human rights have purchasing power; those who don't are robbed of what little still remained to them, be it water, food or land. Countries willing to sacrifice human rights, the environment, and the freedom and safety of their citizens have a comparative advantage over those who don't. We are all in a race to the bottom, and the refugees are winning.

Edited by SRV
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What a lovely thought. It usually doesn't work that way, though. Who or what takes power will be the most ruthless people with the best military instincts and the best ability to destroy their opponents. The ordinary people will have little say in the matter.

It's an argument you're more than happy to make when defending how and who our lovely corporations do business with which is usually the most ruthless people they can find. In that case it's entirely the fault and the responsibility of ordinary people to rectify their problem

Given the lack of realism of your earlier statement, I don't think so.

Why given what you say about any need for our responsibility for how we look after our economic interests in dictatorships?

Sometimes we do.

At the expense of our principles and or economy?

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Countries willing to sacrifice human rights, the environment, and the freedom and safety of their citizens have a comparative advantage over those who don't.

And yet, all the countries which do that are poor, save a few with massive oil wealth. And the nations which do NOT sacrifice human rights, the environment and freedom and safety of their citizens are all up on the top of the scale. The problem with most third world countries is poor governance. They'd probably be better off if they brought in some kind of corporate management group to run things.

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And yet, all the countries which do that are poor, save a few with massive oil wealth. And the nations which do NOT sacrifice human rights, the environment and freedom and safety of their citizens are all up on the top of the scale. The problem with most third world countries is poor governance. They'd probably be better off if they brought in some kind of corporate management group to run things.

Yes, poor governance. The corporatocracy, aided and abetted by governments of wealthy countries, prefer corrupt tyrannical two-thirds-world governments as trading partners to honest brokers who look after the interests of their own citizens. The latter would make access to resources in two-thirds-world countries much more difficult and less profitable, and the cost of accessing two-thirds-world countries labour much more expensive. So Canada and other countries negotiate trade deals with the likes of Indonesia's Suharto, Colombia's Uribe, and the Saudi princes. Rich countries legitimize and encourage poor governance in two-thirds-world countries, and even overthrow democratically elected good governance (Chile's Allende, Iran's Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, to cite but two examples). Poor countries would not be better off bringing in a corporate management group. The problem is that these so-called leaders have sold out their citizens to a corporate management group who are managing things in a way that benefits the corporatocracy at the cost of the freedom and welfare of the local population.

Canadians, by the way, are not immune to this. The white European settlers that colonized Canada are now being colonized themselves by this global corporatocracy, to which our own governments have sold our sovereignty. Corporations are suing Canada for impeding or barring access to Canada's resources. For instance, Lone Pine Resources is suing Canada, not for lost investments, but for lost future profits because Quebec decided not to let them frack under the St Lawrence River. I was part of a blockade in Rexton New Brunswick in which the entire local population --the Mi'kmaq joined by the Acadian and Anglophones-- were united in resisting and opposing a fracking company from operating in the area. Both the provincial and federal governments sided with the corporation and deployed hundreds of RCMP to dismantle the blockade. This is but one of many examples of how Canadian Security Forces are used to protect the sovereignty of corporations over that of the local population,

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Yes, poor governance. The corporatocracy, aided and abetted by governments of wealthy countries, prefer corrupt tyrannical two-thirds-world governments as trading partners to honest brokers who look after the interests of their own citizens.

Perhaps but I think it more a case of big, brash blowhards waving AK-47s being more likely to take over a country than soft-spoken intellectuals. That's especially so in cultures with no tradition of democracy or compromise. People like brash loudmouths even Americans, to some extent. Witness Donald Trump's success. For that matter, Canadians too seem to elect for personality more than intelligence and, and offers of short term bribes as opposed to a long term vision.

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