With regards to our sponsored refugees coming to Oliver.

I believe this is the correct way to take in refugees.  Expecting a country to take unknown thousands of refugees is bound to cause much disagreement.

We have thousands of homeless here in Canada, so many poor families who are just managing to exist, children living in poverty and going to school without breakfast, and thousands of people suffering in the northern territories with inadequate housing, schooling and general care.  These people are born Canadian and are not getting the help they need from our government.

How then are we to take care of the thousands of refugee families when we cannot look after natural born Canadians?

I really believe that the Oliver community and churches are doing it right.  This family will be welcomed into the community, they will be eased into our way of life by caring people.  There will always be some residents who look at them with suspicion and distrust, that is the way some people are.  If each small town, in Canada, adopted one family to assist and integrate into the community, each family would feel welcome and wanted.  Hoards of refugees struggling to find their own way in their new life will find it easier to cling together, not be easily integrated into the community and tend to make a little Syria, instead of trying to be part of the community.

Dave and I came to Canada over forty years ago, we worked hard and tried to be a part of whichever community we have lived in.  I believe we are decent citizens and do our part by volunteering and serving the community whenever we can.  We had to learn by trial and error
just what the Canadian way of living was, and we did our best to adapt.  We had the advantage of speaking the language and having a white face.  When I hear people talk about migrants, I always say, “oh, you mean people like me”.  This usually leads to some embarrassment as the speaker tries to dig himself out of a hole.  What they really mean is that white people are acceptable, others, maybe not as warmly welcomed.

The immigration system is a very hard knot of red tape.  I have a cousin in Scotland who lives alone, has absolutely no family except me.  Dave and I would love her to live here and she desperately wants to come but I am not allowed to sponsor her to come.  If she was my sister or a parent, she would be accepted but, as a cousin, she is not.  We have a little granny suite which would be perfect for her to live with us and still have privacy, she is retired and will have an English pension but that doesn’t make her eligible.

I really do not feel I am in any way racist but it does make me feel resentful that it certainly seems to be harder for a white person to be accepted here than someone from a minority  group.  Having said that, I look forward to meeting our new neighbours and will do my part to make them feel at home, that I feel is my responsibility as a Canadian.

Pat Whalley