Dear Editor,
Re: “Canada helping Ukraine isn’t rooted in racism,” Letters, March 17.
Sorry, but Canada not helping refugees from Syria and Afghanistan is rooted in racism.
Just as Canada’s settlements of native lands that were stolen from Indigenous people and given to white Americans, white British, white Ukrainians and Hungarians and other people from white European countries, under the authority of Clifford Sifton, the immigration officer at the time the prairies were being settled. Blacks need not apply.
It was also based in racism when Canada sent back Indian people, as well as Jewish people who tried to escape the death camps in Nazi Germany. The Chinese head tax was based in racism.
The letter writer above also contradicts himself when he claims that Canada has no obligation to help Afghanis and Syrians because they are not members of NATO, but has a duty to help Ukraine who is also not a member of NATO.
He also doesn’t seem to understand NATO. NATO was a Western alliance formed when the Soviet Union existed to stop Soviet expansion.
During the 1990s, the Soviet Union fell, which made NATO obsolete. It should have been disbanded at that time. Instead, NATO became a branch of the U.S. arms manufacturing industry and began pushing into Eastern Europe.
More members, more arms contracts for American arms dealers. This has been NATO’s singular purpose since the Soviet Union fell and there was no more threat of Soviet expansion.
NATO is a big reason we are on the verge of nuclear war at the moment and Iqbal Ladha is correct. Canada has and does pass racist policies all the time.
Wendy Miko
RICHMOND
Editor’s note: NATO enlargement was a priority for the U.S. government in the mid-1990s. Regardless, Ukraine and other Eastern European countries have requested membership into the military alliance.
