Broken Resolutions

You may have seen that Canada's shiny new federal government missed its goal on Syrian refugees. During the campaign, the Liberals pledged to bring in 25,000 refugees by the end of the year. When they got into office and realized just what a logistical nightmare it is to move so many people. It's essentially moving Corner Brook, Newfoundland to another continent.

So they reduced the goal to 25,000 over all, and just 10,000 by the end of the year. That's a mere Selkirk, Saskatchewan. Much easier. But unfortunately, that goal was also missed, with only 6,000 entering the country by year's end.

That's unfortunate, and the media and opposition should take them to task for it, but I've been disappointed by how they've both been sleepwalking through the broken-government-promises script on this issue.

The problem is, this is an unusual issue, since the breaking of the promise was based pretty much entirely on put judgement on what's possible. Normally, the cause is laziness, graft, or misleading the public about the governing party's motives. So it sounds strange hearing people berate the government over dishonesty when they have in fact put in an actual effort that's come up against the constraints of reality.

But this is a difficult issue to criticize. Normally, Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition would be all over the government's first mistake. But after trying to ride hijabphobia into office, they can't really complain that the government isn't letting Muslims into the country fast enough. And the go-to criticism style in Canada is to compare us unfavorably to other countries, preferably the Americans. But again, you can hardly cry scandal over our slowly accepting 25,000 refugees, when 10,000 refugees has them flirting with fascism.

So ultimately, this is a uniquely Canadian scandal. We're worried that we aren't doing altruistic actions fast enough, and we don't really know how to word our complaints about it.