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Reaction to Paris attack

As with most people on this planet I have been horrified by the heinous and inhuman acts committed in Paris. I will never comprehend this kind of barbaric acts of violence against innocent people because I am convinced there are no possible sane justifications for them.  

What really worries me is the reaction from Canadians and people at large to these events.  Somehow people link the acts of unprecedented cowardice and cruelty committed in Paris to the millions of refugees trying to flee precisely these kinds of atrocities which they have seen or experienced first hand.

People have asked Prime Minister Trudeau to reconsider, halt or outright cancel the humanitarian act of accepting 25,000 refugees into Canada in light of the terrorist acts in Paris last week-end.  In my opinion, this is based on fear and on false assumptions.

Firstly, people assume that the security screening to be done on these refugees is inadequate and not sufficient and that in light of the events in Paris better screening methods are required.  Are people truly convinced that Canada has no adequate nor effective refugee security screening processes currently in place especially after 10 years of Conservative government involvement?  Are we convinced that elected government officials would want to blindly and irresponsibly take the risk performing inadequate screening of refugee just to meet an election promise? Really?  Fear is what is driving this debate and what is required is level headed thinking.  What better screening do Canadians want or is it a concealed way of saying that we do not want to help all those people who have suffered horrible sufferings and require a safe haven?  Or are we looking for guaranties?

Unfortunately one must be reminded that the perpetrator of the terrorist acts in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and at the Canadian National War Memorial (whose names I do not want to cite so as not to give them more public exposure since they deserve none) were not refugees and that notwithstanding the fact that they were both born in Canada still managed to become radicalized and commit acts of terror.  There is no guaranty that any current Canadian citizen and yes,  let's admit it, that any of the best possibly screened Syrian refugee cannot and will not ever become radicalized.  There is no guaranty that acts of terror will never be perpetrated in Canada even if we stopped accepting refugees for ever.

So what are we going to do as a nation, become creatures of fear without hope for a better world and abandon our kind altruistic nature that has made and built this great country?  We have elected a government that, according to many Canadians, have given Canadians back a sense of hope and pride.  Let's not fall back into what the terrorist would love to see: a society closed on itself in constant fear of everything that is not "genuinely like us".  That is not my vision.

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