Up to 2,300 Syrian refugees expected in Calgary over the next six to eight weeks

[driveway]

I think arguing over how we're going to pay for helping people when the opportunity to help people exists is pretty gross.

Help first, figure out how to pay for it later.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Buster

Of course it is. Tribalism is an inherent component of the human condition. For better or for worse. Tribalism. It's in our brains.

I think you've missed my point. I clearly indicated that it's "in our brains" as a product of evolution, and was once a useful predilection when we were all living in small tribes and lac of this distrust of the other would have essentially made us dodo birds. It would be pretty hard to deny this on a forum dedicated to a sports team; pro sports relies entirely on tribal impulses for its business model. The fact that we all have this characteristic embedded in us absolutely does NOT make it a positive.

The point is the bolded. In modern society, it's "for worse". Particularly at a macro level, tribalism is now almost always a very harmful human trait and is at least partly to blame for basically all large-scale problems we face in the world. So while in some situations it's still helpful especially at the micro level (protect your kids, be loyal to your friends), from a policy standpoint, I'm arguing that tribal impulses should be ignored.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

So while in some situations it's still helpful especially at the micro level (protect your kids, be loyal to your friends), from a policy standpoint, I'm arguing that tribal impulses should be ignored.

But how practical is that? If Canadians regarded all human lives as having equal value, and saw it as our responsibility to save as many lives a possible, regardless of nationality, we would divert 90 per cent of our health care funding to malaria prevention, or mandate all Canadian-trained doctors must spend five years working overseas before they can work in the Canadian system. And we would have to accept that meant thousands more Canadians dying a year, or living in great distress.

It gets even more blurry than that. How many South Africans have died in the last 20 years because hundreds of South African trained nurses - a precious commodity in that country - have emigrated to Canada, leaving their compatriots with even less access to health care? I'd hazard that number is far greater than the number of South African lives we've saved with whatever aid we devote to that country.

If we cared as much about foreign lives and property as our own, we wouldn't be spending a penny on flood mitigation in southern Alberta, and would instead devote that money to similar projects in Bangladesh, or Vietnam.

I understand the theoretical point you're making. And we should work towards broadening our circles of empathy (and recognize the tremendous progress we have made in expanding that circle in recent generations). But eschewing tribalism and self-interest altogether is a utopian ideal.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

I'm not sure those conclusions are necessarily required, when you factor in that we exist within a particular system of nations where the nation's role is to take care of its own citizens, primarily. In other words, we may take the view that there's no difference in value between my life and a Syrian refugee's, but still think that within the world as it exists, the most practical way to do things is to have everyone look after their own citizens first and then pitch in when a humanitarian crisis rears its head such that there's a big group of people who have no one else to assist them. But I do think we should aim for theoretically supportable policy goals, and at least where we can practically achieve them in the real world, do so. Often, it won't be practically possible. Here, though, it seems to be - there's the political will, internationally, to pull this off to at least some extent.

I mean, if one could re-make the world from scratch to align with the current state of human progress, it would probably look very different and not be as concerned with national boundaries, I suspect - but that's exactly what you say, utopian.

Frankly if I were interested in perfect logical consistency I would have to eschew consequentialism altogether; it's just the only pragmatic way to approach the world as it exists.

[GullFoss]

I wouldnt be surprised if we end up taking in 250,000 refugees before the end of this decade. Even after the war is over, many will have nothing to return to.

25,000 by year end os just the begining

[Stay Golden]

I think it is equally fair to say that all 25,000 Syrian refugees are legitmate refugees as it is to say possibly 250 are high risk to Canada's national defense.
What is certain is for the Liberals to expect a processing and screening timeline for 25000 that is usually done over 2.5 years completed in 6 weeks is showing very poor judgement and to have Zero mistakes is absurd.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Stay Golden

I think it is equally fair to say that all 25,000 Syrian refugees are legitmate refugees as it is to say possibly 250 are high risk to Canada's national defense.
What is certain is for the Liberals to expect a processing and screening timeline for 25000 that is usually done over 2.5 years completed in 6 weeks is showing very poor judgement and to have Zero mistakes is absurd.

How can you come up with such a number?

[Buster]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

How can you come up with such a number?

Pew poll research is quite informative on this. In a random population from Islam dominated countries you can reasonably expect true extremists to be in the 10% range. Moderate support for some extremist policies is much higher.

We went know the incidence of violent refugees fire some time. But we can say with a relatively high degree of confidence that a significant portion of the refugees will hold views that no one here would consider moderate.

These people are refugees not necessarily apostates.

[Stay Golden]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

How can you come up with such a number?

Are you being serious, just asking

[Buster]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I'm not sure those conclusions are necessarily required, when you factor in that we exist within a particular system of nations where the nation's role is to take care of its own citizens, primarily. In other words, we may take the view that there's no difference in value between my life and a Syrian refugee's, but still think that within the world as it exists, the most practical way to do things is to have everyone look after their own citizens first and then pitch in when a humanitarian crisis rears its head such that there's a big group of people who have no one else to assist them. But I do think we should aim for theoretically supportable policy goals, and at least where we can practically achieve them in the real world, do so. Often, it won't be practically possible. Here, though, it seems to be - there's the political will, internationally, to pull this off to at least some extent.

I mean, if one could re-make the world from scratch to align with the current state of human progress, it would probably look very different and not be as concerned with national boundaries, I suspect - but that's exactly what you say, utopian.

Frankly if I were interested in perfect logical consistency I would have to eschew consequentialism altogether; it's just the only pragmatic way to approach the world as it exists.

Your point ignores to some degree the correlation between national borders and societal norms. We have a national border in large part to impose a set of values - free speech, freedom of association etc. The lines aren't arbitrary.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

^I do think it's pretty arbitrary at this stage. That set of values isn't shared by all Canadians when compared, to, say, their identification with so-called French or British or US values, which vary somewhat but aren't really all that much different in principle. I'm probably more American on freedom of expression than Canadian; I'm more Canadian than American on the role of government, etc.

Originally Posted by Buster

In a random population from Islam dominated countries you can reasonably expect true extremists to be in the 10% range.

First, this is obviously inaccurate no matter your definition simply because the range of people who hold any set of views in Muslim majority countries varies wildly country to country, so there's no baseline.

Second, what does "true extremists" mean? Does it mean people who are willing to be suicide bombers? How about people who support suicide bombing but wouldn't do it themselves? How about people who think violence is awful and unjustified, yet want Sharia imposed over all countries? How about people who want Sharia, but only want it to be imposed on Muslims? How about people who practice Sharia principles but don't want them imposed on anyone?

Third, this is obviously not a random population sample. What the effect of that is, I don't know.

This is, all told, an unhelpful line of inquiry.

[Itse]

Btw.

France has made it very clear that the attacks have not changed their plan to take in 30,000 Syrian refugees.

I think there's a hint there somewhere.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Stay Golden

Are you being serious, just asking

Sorry, I should've clarified. Pew research isn't going to tell us how many are that's to our national defence. I just think that's a random number to pull out especially considering the circumstances. You cannot extrapolate a poll to the pool of refugees your getting. Why would a ISIS sympathetic Syrian refugee flee the caliphate? You're either getting implanted refugees or ones that are fleeing because they're scared. The polls aren't helpful here so your number is likely very wrong

[Johnny199r]

Interesting article from the NY Times on refugees taking bicycles from Northern Russia into Norway..

http://http://www.nytimes.com/2015/1...ctic.html?_r=0

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Sorry, I should've clarified. Pew research isn't going to tell us how many are that's to our national defence. I just think that's a random number to pull out especially considering the circumstances. You cannot extrapolate a poll to the pool of refugees your getting. Why would a ISIS sympathetic Syrian refugee flee the caliphate? You're either getting implanted refugees or ones that are fleeing because they're scared. The polls aren't helpful here so your number is likely very wrong

Well, I don't think this is quite right either. It's possible you're getting people who aren't aligned with ISIS but are nonetheless hostile in some way or other. As has been noted a bunch of times, even Al Qaeda is hostile to ISIS.

I'm not at all suggesting that a bunch or even any of these refugees resemble members of Al Qaeda or trying to be alarmist, I'm just saying the situation is more complicated than some who I've seen posting things to the effect of, "these are the people fleeing ISIS therefore they're anti-ISIS and on our side" would have it.

[GirlySports]

these are people fleeing ISIS therefore they're anti-ISIS and on our side

[calgaryblood]

Guarantee you 99.9% of the Muslim world hates ISIS.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by Itse

Btw.

France has made it very clear that the attacks have not changed their plan to take in 30,000 Syrian refugees.

I think there's a hint there somewhere.

Well, they are also taking 2 years to process and bring those 30,000 refugees.

Is there a hint in there about the scope and timing it takes to screen/process that many people given this situation?

Tuesday can't come soon enough to get details of the Federal plan. Hopefully it'll address and alleviate the legitimate concerns that Canadians have about the timing and scope of their plans. Wish they would have gotten ahead of it by providing information sooner and not muzzling people about this (I thought this wasn't a Harper government!) but let's get this done and done properly.

[Stay Golden]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Sorry, I should've clarified. Pew research isn't going to tell us how many are that's to our national defence. I just think that's a random number to pull out especially considering the circumstances. You cannot extrapolate a poll to the pool of refugees your getting. Why would a ISIS sympathetic Syrian refugee flee the caliphate? You're either getting implanted refugees or ones that are fleeing because they're scared. The polls aren't helpful here so your number is likely very wrong

The number of people arriving varies from year to year. In 2014, more than 13,500 people came to Canada and made an asylum claim.

So Trudeau is expecting 25000 in 6 weeks. When in 52 weeks it took 13500. It is Trudeau's expectectations based on numbers alone that should be in question.
Perfection in screening that all are refugees in 6 weeks. Don't question my numbers question the reality of what Trudeau is demanding and wants the average Canadian to put blind faith in his "campaign promise".

Also for those that love to bash the PC's on immigration. Canada takes in roughly 1 out of every 10 refugees globally by all countries.

The PC's in 2012 setting immigration records to the tune of 257000. But yet the Liberals painted Harper and the PC's as racists.

http://www.cicnews.com/2013/03/2012-...on-032346.html

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/refugees/canada.asp

[Buster]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

^I do think it's pretty arbitrary at this stage. That set of values isn't shared by all Canadians when compared, to, say, their identification with so-called French or British or US values, which vary somewhat but aren't really all that much different in principle. I'm probably more American on freedom of expression than Canadian; I'm more Canadian than American on the role of government, etc.

First, this is obviously inaccurate no matter your definition simply because the range of people who hold any set of views in Muslim majority countries varies wildly country to country, so there's no baseline.

Second, what does "true extremists" mean? Does it mean people who are willing to be suicide bombers? How about people who support suicide bombing but wouldn't do it themselves? How about people who think violence is awful and unjustified, yet want Sharia imposed over all countries? How about people who want Sharia, but only want it to be imposed on Muslims? How about people who practice Sharia principles but don't want them imposed on anyone?

Third, this is obviously not a random population sample. What the effect of that is, I don't know.

This is, all told, an unhelpful line of inquiry.

I think it's reasonable to have a discussion on how we define extremism. If only so we can make the word useful in our discussions.

But how to define extreme/moderate is a discussion that tends to get shouted down by the left, as they feel the entire discussion is inappropriate.

I will say that the average Canadian makes the assumption that a "moderate" muslim is someone who is like "us". I think people would probably slide a larger portion of muslims into the "not moderate" camp if they heard directly on various topics like freedom of speech, freedom to blaspheme, gay rights, etc.