REFUGEES AND IMMIGRANTS - RECOGNIZING THE SALT OF THE EARTH

 

 

My Father, George Rubin, President,

Metropolitan News Agency,
1248 Peel Street,

Montreal, Canada

 

My ancestors came to Canada a hundred years ago to escape the butchery of Jewish people in Russia and Poland. Once ashore, they had to deal with anti-Semitism in Quebec. They worked their way around it and suffered it in painful silence. They laboured day and night to make a life for their family in Canada and later, to provide jobs for others.

 

My grandmother slept on the factory floor in order to be at her sewing machine first thing in the morning because she was paid a few cents each for piece work and every cent meant some food on the table for her children. My father slept on the newspaper work table over night, to be sure to open the store early in case of a snowstorm, so that the employees would not be left waiting on the icy steps in the cold, and the customers would not miss out on the early editions of The Gazette and The Herald.

 

What any society needs is honest, decent people who are willing to do good work for a fair wage, respect, security and the basic necessities of life. People who will appreciate their neighbours and expect the same in return. People who hunger for education and will use it to help the community that has welcomed them. People who will care for their children and guide them to become honest and honourable citizens if they are just given the seeds of life to get started - food, shelter and health care, and the opportunity to do honest work. 

 

As human beings, we must have a heart for refugees, and we must not turn them away to be slaughtered in their lands of origin as was done to the Jews in the 1940's by Canada and the United States and England. But we need not be fools and allow ourselves to be trod upon by thieves and leeches.

 

To be a truly great and admirable and successful society, we must welcome talented people from other lands - most especially competent doctors. If the individual has the skills, the good character and the genuine desire to heal the sick, we must not reject him or her out of fear or selfishness. "This is all mine. You can't have any." That cancer specialist you have just rejected could have saved hundreds, if not thousands of Canadian lives. Perhaps your own. But you told him to go away and re-apply later. How many Canadians will die because you sent him away?

 

We must not allow prejudice and greed to dictate against people from other countries. But refugee claimants should not be allowed to enter the country under false pretenses when all they really want is the benefits, the goodies, the perks. If we welcome such people, they will swallow us up and spit out our depleted bones with a contented smile.

 

This is a huge land with incredible, yet unimagined resources. There is enough here for millions of good people,  but not an inch to spare for more criminals.

 

Phyllis Rubin Carter