What to make of the case of Taha El Taha, an illegal who entered Canada through the back door of the now infamous unmanned border crossing in Quebec and discovered days later that he had terminal, stage-four cancer?
El Taha fled Beirut last year to seek asylum in the U.S. but crossed the border on foot from New York to Quebec in December.
His story, while tragic, highlights the profoundly problematic nature of the Trudeau Liberal government’s open door policy toward refugee claimants.
While thousands of Canadians lie in beds in the hallways of their hospitals, and hundreds of thousands join long queues to see specialists, El Taha has had six chemotherapy sessions since January courtesy of the Canadian taxpayers to combat his colorectal cancer.
He’s now scheduled for emergency surgery.
And he’s pressing Canadian authorities to allow the family he left behind to join him. He talks with them every day on the phone.
The CBC — via its As It Happens radio program — has joined the heart-tug choir, lamenting that El Taha, a Palestinian born in Saudi Arabia, is being denied the best therapy possible for his recovery, the diagnosis from his doctors being that he needs his family at his side.
So, this is where we are now, a little over a year after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted out his welcome to virtually any and all asylum seekers only a day after U.S. President Donald Trump issued his controversial travel ban to those wanting out of seven Muslim-dominated countries.
“To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith,” Trudeau wrote on the social media platform. “Diversity is our strength. #WelcomeToCanada.”
Since then, upwards of 20,500 asylum seekers have “welcomed” themselves to Canada through unmanned border crossings, the vast majority entering by a dead-end road in St-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que., all now fully aware they would have been turned back at any official border point.
This huge influx, along with being a drain on resources, has also created a backlog of 50,000 refugee claims.
The Montreal Gazette, like the CBC’s As It Happens, appears to be in agony over El Taha having to fight his cancer alone, and wrote about the hardship of not having his family with him, and quoted him on how the winter cold of Montreal was the “worst enemy of someone with cancer.”
As writer Catherine Solyom put it, “In the lottery of life, (El Taha) can’t even buy a ticket.”
Really? There would be many who would argue quite rightly that the 36-year-old El Taha won the jackpot.
After all, just two days after he entered this country illegally, his stage-four cancer was discovered and he was quickly jumping another queue, the cancer-treatment one, and being treated by some of the best doctors in Montreal, with no charge to him.
If that’s not winning the lottery of life, what is?
In the script he provided to the Gazette, he left his wife and two children in Lebanon in October 2017, supposedly fearing for his life when Hezbollah, a recognized terrorist group, wanted him to work as an informant.
When he refused, they allegedly burned down his house?
As the Gazette put it, “It was time for him to go.”
As for the wife and kids El Taha misses so much?
Now, there will be those who will think, and rightly so in their own minds, that I am a cruel-hearted bastard for not joining in on the pity session for Taha El Taha.
Of course, we should and have an obligation to care for those we permit into this country. But we’re not doing that. Our emergency shelters are crowded with refugees and more are crossing the border illegally all the time.
The feds are dumping the costs and problems of refugees, medical and otherwise, onto cities and provincial governments and our border has become a joke.
Watch now for federal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen to cave to all the tear streaming, and let them in.
http://torontosun.com/news/national/bonokoski-costs-growing-for-feds-open-door-border
El Taha fled Beirut last year to seek asylum in the U.S. but crossed the border on foot from New York to Quebec in December.
His story, while tragic, highlights the profoundly problematic nature of the Trudeau Liberal government’s open door policy toward refugee claimants.
While thousands of Canadians lie in beds in the hallways of their hospitals, and hundreds of thousands join long queues to see specialists, El Taha has had six chemotherapy sessions since January courtesy of the Canadian taxpayers to combat his colorectal cancer.
He’s now scheduled for emergency surgery.
And he’s pressing Canadian authorities to allow the family he left behind to join him. He talks with them every day on the phone.
The CBC — via its As It Happens radio program — has joined the heart-tug choir, lamenting that El Taha, a Palestinian born in Saudi Arabia, is being denied the best therapy possible for his recovery, the diagnosis from his doctors being that he needs his family at his side.
So, this is where we are now, a little over a year after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted out his welcome to virtually any and all asylum seekers only a day after U.S. President Donald Trump issued his controversial travel ban to those wanting out of seven Muslim-dominated countries.
“To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith,” Trudeau wrote on the social media platform. “Diversity is our strength. #WelcomeToCanada.”
Since then, upwards of 20,500 asylum seekers have “welcomed” themselves to Canada through unmanned border crossings, the vast majority entering by a dead-end road in St-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que., all now fully aware they would have been turned back at any official border point.
This huge influx, along with being a drain on resources, has also created a backlog of 50,000 refugee claims.
The Montreal Gazette, like the CBC’s As It Happens, appears to be in agony over El Taha having to fight his cancer alone, and wrote about the hardship of not having his family with him, and quoted him on how the winter cold of Montreal was the “worst enemy of someone with cancer.”
As writer Catherine Solyom put it, “In the lottery of life, (El Taha) can’t even buy a ticket.”
Really? There would be many who would argue quite rightly that the 36-year-old El Taha won the jackpot.
After all, just two days after he entered this country illegally, his stage-four cancer was discovered and he was quickly jumping another queue, the cancer-treatment one, and being treated by some of the best doctors in Montreal, with no charge to him.
If that’s not winning the lottery of life, what is?
In the script he provided to the Gazette, he left his wife and two children in Lebanon in October 2017, supposedly fearing for his life when Hezbollah, a recognized terrorist group, wanted him to work as an informant.
When he refused, they allegedly burned down his house?
As the Gazette put it, “It was time for him to go.”
As for the wife and kids El Taha misses so much?
Now, there will be those who will think, and rightly so in their own minds, that I am a cruel-hearted bastard for not joining in on the pity session for Taha El Taha.
Of course, we should and have an obligation to care for those we permit into this country. But we’re not doing that. Our emergency shelters are crowded with refugees and more are crossing the border illegally all the time.
The feds are dumping the costs and problems of refugees, medical and otherwise, onto cities and provincial governments and our border has become a joke.
Watch now for federal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen to cave to all the tear streaming, and let them in.
http://torontosun.com/news/national/bonokoski-costs-growing-for-feds-open-door-border
