Mixed Feelings, Including Pride

The Tamil refugee story has many angles. I'm concerned about human smuggling and I hope Canada can stop it somehow. There's also the fact that our refugee policy has been too lax and many foreigners have taken advantage of the loopholes. On the other hand, this country has always (in recent years, anyway) welcomed genuine refugees and the vast majority of those refugees have become contributing members of our society. I'm also glad that conditions on board that ship weren't as bad as I thought they might be, considering the track record of the human smuggling racket.

One thing in this story, though, really makes me proud of my country:

"The Canadian Tamil Congress said the migrants' plight is eliciting an outpouring of support across Canada, despite official concerns that the ship might harbor Tamil Tigers, a group branded as terrorists.

The Congress said Chinese, Indian and Sikh communities in Canada, as well as churches have been calling to express their solidarity with the Tamils.

"What we're seeing is that Canadians as a whole are showing their compassion, not just for their own, but for the migrants in British Columbia," said Raj Phayaparan, a spokesman for the Canadian Tamil Congress in Montreal."

Trust the media, though, to go ballistic about the one negative angle in the story.