Are the Syrian refugees actually refugees?

FIRST POSTED: THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2016 06:15 PM EST

The Liberal government is delivering on its promise to accept 25,000 Syrian migrants by the end of this month. Leamington and Peterborough, Ontario, and Brooks, Alberta are the latest Canadian cities to accept refugees, most of whom have already arrived.

The plight of desperate people fleeing for their lives, starving in besieged cities or wounded in the crossfires of a bloody war rightly evokes sympathy everywhere. Yet are the truly desperate even able to make their way over?

Given the volatile political situation in Syria and given the fact that many Canadians fear a credible terrorist threat among the influx of refugees, it is reasonable to ask whether the people we are accepting genuinely meet the criteria of refugees as outlined in the 1951 UNHCR Refugee Convention.

The Convention defines a refugee as someone who, "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to… avail himself of the protection of that country."

According to this definition, Yazedis and Christians in Syria would be the most persecuted in their own country. Yet many accounts confirm that Yazedis and Christians avoid refugee camps because they fear some or all of them could be dominated by Islamists, including ISIS sympathizers.

此外，并不是每个逃离叙利亚的人都是战争的受害者。有些可能是加入难民营的经济移民，难民营里没有一定数量的调查可以把真难民与那些寻求财富和更广泛的机会的人区分开来。

Furthermore, not everyone fleeing Syria is a victim of war. Some are probably economic migrants who have joined the refugees in camps where no amount of investigation can separate the genuine refugees from those seeking affluence and broader opportunities.

Again, according to the UNHCR, "Global migration patterns have become increasingly complex in modern times, involving not just refugees, but also millions of economic migrants. But refugees and migrants…are fundamentally different, and for that reason are treated very differently under modern international law."

Refugees must be granted safe haven. Economic migrants, on the other hand, face no such desperation.

One troubling figure justifiably heightens Canadian anxiety. According to a 2014 study from the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, about 13% of camp residents support ISIS, and it is a fair to assume that an even greater number sympathise with Islamist organizations that are less murderous but still extreme.

Canada may have done better to help the truly desperate people on their own turf or in safe third countries like Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, which struggle to provide basics to many desperate people who have already been able to escape the Syrian war.

Such action would mean Canadians have upheld the right of the dispossessed under international law to have access to a safe third place. Instead, by resettling 25,000 refugees with a promise to double that number, Canada has been able to help far fewer refugees than what the situation warrants. Resettlement is not the same thing as safe haven, and it is the latter which the refugees are entitled to.

The choice is either to help truly desperate Syrians by funding conditions in camps and other facilities in the region of origin, or to take them in as new Canadians and provide high-end resettlement packages. The government is generously assisting refugees it has sponsored, based on provincial social assistance rates. This is an ongoing expense that is helping only a lucky few Syrian families, perhaps not the most needy. A more enlightened policy would be to make the lives of the desperate majority a little more liveable.