Canadians celebrated their Thanksgiving about six weeks ago. Tomorrow, as we celebrate our Thanksgiving, we should give our neighbors to the North a special thanks.
While U.S. Republican presidential candidates continue to use the Paris tragedy to fear monger and to stoke the xenophobic fires, Canada is setting the example of what a good neighbor and a Good Samaritan is.
According to TIME, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will announce Tuesday that Canada will resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees.
While at least 30 U.S. governors, mostly Republicans, have decided to bar Syrian refugees from settling in their states, all 10 of Canada’s provincial premiers are supporting the resettlement program.
TIME: “Quebec Premier Phillipe Couillard said accepting refugees and immigrants is part of Canadian tradition. ‘There was no one sitting at the table that is not interested in seeing refugees come,’ Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said.”
Finally:
Canada has long prided itself on opening its doors wider than any nation to asylum seekers. In times of crisis in decades past, Canada resettled refugees quickly and in large numbers. It airlifted more than 5,000 people from Kosovo in the late 1990s, more than 5,000 from Uganda in 1972 and resettled 60,000 Vietnamese in 1979-80. More than 1.2 million refugees have arrived in Canada since World War II.
Thank you Canada.
Lead image: www.shutterstock.com
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.