Mr. Harper, this refugee crisis should be your moment: Former Immigration Minister McDougall

Former Progressive Conservative Minister of Immigration Barbara McDougall:

Although rarely spoken of, the irony that Germany, with its Nazi past, should be the most welcoming of any nation in today’s refugee crisis, is not lost on those with any knowledge of the era, which is just about everybody. Canada has its own stain from that dreadful period, the turning away of the Jewish refugee ship MS St. Louis in 1939. While there are many memories of prime minister MacKenzie King, that stain will remain forever on his reputation.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper would do well to remember this in the current Syrian refugee turmoil. This is his moment to shine, and it is slipping away fast. Conservative Party followers may be split on this issue, but then Conservative Party voters always are, no matter what the issue. Mr. Harper has done well to hold the Conservative factions together for the past decade, but the coalition, which began to unravel shortly after the last election, is disintegrating at an accelerating rate, with the remnants of the old Red Tories becoming more vocal on the moral crisis the government faces.

It is beyond time for Mr. Harper to recognize that every leader faces an unexpected moral choice that sometimes seems to come out of nowhere – and this is his. The fact that he is in the election campaign of his life makes his situation more difficult, but does not make the choice less compelling. He surely does not want to go into history, whenever that may be, with the heartrending picture of a tragically drowned toddler at the top of his file. And it may well dominate, no matter what his accomplishments in government have been, unless he can find a way to navigate the flood of sympathy now rightly being expressed by Canadians from all walks of life, including many Conservatives. Canadians are looking for a leader to lead – to express the sympathetic outpouring of Canadians and act upon them.

Source: Mr. Harper, this refugee crisis should be your moment – The Globe and Mail