{"id":15154,"date":"2016-08-31T11:49:03","date_gmt":"2016-08-31T15:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=15154"},"modified":"2016-08-31T11:49:03","modified_gmt":"2016-08-31T15:49:03","slug":"politics-as-usual-birthright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-birthright\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: Birthright?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have just watched the Olympics and revelled in the achievements of \u201cour\u201d athletes, our \u201cCanadian\u201d athletes; many of whom come from other places but have been fortunate enough to call Canada home now.
\nTo be Canadian is to be fortunate indeed. I am an immigrant. And every day, I am thankful that my parents chose Canada as our home. Our family has benefited immensely from that decision. We have enjoyed a fantastic quality of life \u2013 the best schools, health care, environment, housing, amenities \u2013 and on and on.
\nWe were and are indeed lucky. How wonderful for us. But what about everyone else?
\nAs I watch the news and see the latest terrible images of children fleeing wartorn Syria and then hear the appalling rhetoric from some bellowing loudly about not letting \u201cthose\u201d people into \u201cour\u201d country, I am struck by one overwhelming thought \u2013 Why?
\nWhy am I so lucky and they are not? I do not for one minute ascribe the circumstance of my birth as due to anything but the vagaries of chance. Because to do so would be dishonest with myself. Where I was born is not something I earned. It is something that just happened.
\nIt is not to my credit that I was born in Ireland and allowed to immigrate to Canada any more than it is a child\u2019s fault to have been born in a Somalian refugee camp. I did not choose my birthplace, any more than they did.
\nBirthright is not a meritocracy. It is intellectually dishonest to suggest otherwise.
\nThose self-righteous folks who advocate building a wall, pulling up the drawbridge, slamming the door on folks who wish desperately for a better life, the life that we all enjoy as a matter of course, should think long and hard about how and why they have what they have.
\nBefore I get some flaming emails, I am not saying that we throw open our borders. Far from it. Every country has a right to decide how many people it can support; to protect itself from those that may seek to destroy it from within. We have a right to decide what and who will make our country strong.
\nSimilarly, I do not support the idea that those who jump the queue should somehow be given sympathy for doing so. There are folks who have been following the legal process and waiting patiently for years for their turn to be Canadian. Why should they have to wait even longer, because someone else decided to ignore the rules? How is that fair?
\nHowever, that assumes that the process for entering our country is, in fact, fair. And that\u2019s where I think a broader discussion is required.
\nWho decides what, who and how many? Based on what? What are the criteria? How are they developed? Is that based on fact? Or emotion? Evidence-based policy, not lifeboat ethics, should be the basis upon which our immigration \u2013 and refugee \u2013 policies are set. There will always be a fear of the \u201cother\u201d. It shouldn\u2019t be the reason we shut people out.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas We have just watched the Olympics and revelled in the achievements of \u201cour\u201d athletes, our \u201cCanadian\u201d athletes; many of whom come from other places but have been fortunate enough to call Canada home now. To be Canadian is to be fortunate indeed. I am an immigrant. And every day, I am thankful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3Wq","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-21 06:08:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}