Invasive Lobsters To The Vancouver Sun, August 7, 2016: If the Hon. Dominic LeBlanc’s bureaucrats and negotiators think that “scientific evidence is far from certain” that American lobsters pose no threat to European lobsters, then they haven’t sought or listened to scientific advice. American lobsters do not occur naturally in Europe and would be a dangerous invasive, alien, exotic species. The two are different species, but can interbreed. The world is full of ecological disasters caused by introduction of exotic species, but we have only to look at British Columbia to see the dangers. These examples are only three of many: exotic milfoil fowling Okanagan Lake, alien knapweeds ruining cattle pastures throughout our interior grasslands and introduced mysid shrimp destroying trout fisheries in Kootenay and Arrow Lakes. No credible scientist would recommend any trade actions that could result in introducing our species into their waters.

Re: What Happens After Mosul: After ISIL is Defeated, Kurdish Forces May Push for Independent Territory, by Matthew Fisher October 18, 2016 to The Vancouver Sun: So what if the Kurds seek independence? The Kurds are the only good guys in this whole cruel, chaotic catastrophe. Saddam Hussein gassed them by the thousands, back when there really were weapons of mass destruction. Yet beyond organizing an effective, semi-autonomous administration of their own territory in northern Iraq in the postwar governance vaccuum, they have never said, or in actions suggested, that they sought territorial expansion or subjugation of others. Their Peshmerga fighters have been the only effective military force on the ground in the region and they have only fought for defense of their land, and to help others under attack by the jihadis. In 2014, when ISIL massacred whole villages of Yasidis except for the young women whom they sold into sex slavery, who came to the aid of survivors clustering on a remote mountain? Not Canada, politically afraid to put “boots on the ground”. Not Iraqi forces, who ran away. Not the USA or the UK, although they dropped supplies from aircrafft. Only the Peshmerga came to save the Yasidis. In Turkey, no doubt the PKK have committed atrocities, but far fewer than the government of Turkey has committed against them in a brutal, sustained campaign of intimidation. But Turkish Kurds have elected members to Turkey’s parlimant, participating in such democracy as is available to them. In Syria, Peshmerga fighters have liberated Kurdish villages from ISIS, but have refused to be drawn into the wider conflicts. Yes, Kurds have been accused of driving Arabs out of their territory in Iraq, but their side of this story is that these were “foreigners” whom Saddam Hussein had forcibly settled in Kurdish territory. Arming Kurds can only serve humanitarian goals in the short term. In the long term it is unlikely to lead to calls for sovereignty, but even if it does, it would solve more problems than it creates. What is wrong with self-determination for a people with their own language and culture who are abused by every country that their ancestral homeland covers?

From August 4, 2015 to The Vancouver Sun: Daphne Braham (Compassionate Canada has lots its way) is right: this is no longer the Canada we love and thought we knew. In 1970 I left a country (USA) that was conflicted internally and going around the world deposing democratically elected presidents and installing dictators. I chose Canada, tranquil internally and known as a neutral peacemaker internationally. I drove to the border and presented my credentials. Immigrants needed 50 points: so many points for a university education (check), so many for a job offer (I was going to a $200/month plus room and board job), so many for being married (the marriage was over, but I still had the license), cash (I had about $200, just enough to prove I wasn’t indigent), and so on. In an hour I was a Landed Immigrant, and in five years, a Citizen. How different now, when people arriving at the border, just like I did, are thrown in jail by the boatload, and immigration has declined to a trickle, even as the need escalates exponentially! Braham quotes former Senator Pat Carney writing to Immigration Minister Chris Alexander suggesting that we “bring in 100,000 of them [Syrian refugees] to Canada immediately,” of the 4,088,078 registered by the United Nations. Canada is a big land with few people and lots of resources. From 2002 to 2006 I worked in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan assessing the impact of 1.4 million refugees that had fled Kuwait in 1990 when Iraq invaded. They came to a country, about the size of British Columbia, with virtually no natural resources, that was still struggling to integrate an influx of about 2.1 million Palestinian refugees after the 1967 and 1973 wars. During 2003, I watched droves of Iraqis fleeing the war debark from the Baghdad–Amman busses, adding another 200,000 to Jordan’s stressed population. By August 2014, some 608,000 Syrian had crossed into Jordan. Their main refugee camp near Mafraq was a pastoral paradise when I saw it last in 2006, shepherds grazing their goats, sheep and camels in a sea of grass. If tiny Jordan, bereft of natural resources, can take in so many millions of desperate people, how can Canada not follow Carney’s advice and accept at least 100,000 immediately, as a first start?