Kenney’s mean bill hurts refugees — and Canada’s rep

You can judge a nation sometimes on how it treats its weakest citizens.

Canada, historically, has always known itself to be a nation of immigrants and refugees. All of us — with the exception of our First Nations, whose leadership are gathered this week in Toronto to select a national grand chief — have come here from somewhere else. If we’re being honest with ourselves, we must acknowledge that much.

It’s a strength, too. Our diversity, and our willingness to welcome others seeking a new and better life, is one of the things that makes us great. We’ve collectively made Canada the best country on earth by welcoming newcomers. Not by turning them away. As such, the United Nations has consistently ranked Canada as one of the world’s best nations.

Jason Kenney doesn’t agree with any of that, or he doesn’t understand any of that. In the Harper government, Kenney is the minister charged with making Canada less hospitable to those from afar. He’s good at it.

Whenever the Conservative government gets in trouble or seems adrift, Kenney can be counted on to offer up some mean and miserly new policy, a bit of dog-whistling to quiet the conservative core vote. Thus, his recent plan to deny basic health benefits to refugees.

Kenney’s anti-refugee bill, C-31, will kill basic medical coverage provided to refugees and asylum-seekers. As such, it persecutes those who have mostly come here to escape persecution. It is a distinctly un-Canadian bit of viciousness, one that will see diabetics denied insulin, heart patients denied life-saving medications and high-risk pregnant women unable to get the treatment they need. The Canadian Medical Association says it will see children held in detention centres with their mothers.

It’s not like Kenney’s law to punish the most vulnerable can be justified as a cost-cutting measure, either. Providing basic health benefits to refugees represents about a fraction of the cost of an F-35 jet fighter — or around the amount Harper spends annually on polling.

Nor is it likely that Kenney is unaware that his law — which is clearly aimed at those with colour and faith unlike his own — is in no way legal or moral. C-31, which passed third reading in Parliament last month and is now law, has been roundly condemned by everyone from the Canadian Nurses Association to groups of Holocaust survivors. Legal experts say it will be found to be unconstitutional.

Jews — who know too well what can happen when nations close their doors to refugees — have also opposed the bill. Even Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace prize winner Elie Weisel has condemned it.

So why is Kenney doing it? In part, as noted, to throw a bone to hardcore conservatives. Harper displeased many of them with his resolute refusal to reopen socially conservative issues, like abortion. Kenney is arguably trying to keep the Conservative coalition intact.

It is also possible that Kenney truly believes in what he is doing.

But if a single mother or child dies as a consequence of the legislation, Kenney’s political career will be at an end. He will be forever remembered as the pro-lifer who wasn’t.

Jason Kenney, in sum, is a thug. In the eyes of the world, he is making us less than we are, and even less than what we have been.

Original Article
Source: toronto sun
Author: Warren Kinsella