Hamilton shelter urges help for Syrian refugees

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The political pressure is on to have Canada do more when it comes to helping Syrian refugees.

People are rallying together to find ways to help welcome them to Canada after seeing the images of Alan Kurdi, 3, washed up on a Turkish beach; one child out of millions who have died trying to escape Syria, a country ridden with violence and murders. Kurdi has become the poster child that has prompted grassroots action.

Scott Jones is the executive director at Micah House in Hamilton which is a temporary shelter for refugees. Jones says he has only seen about a dozen Syrian refugees come to the shelter out of the 700 clients micah house has helped in the last nine years.

Jones says people can help Syrians with donations to organizations providing humanitarian aid on the ground in Syria. Jones says sponsorship is a good way to help too, but he criticizes the Canadian government for a difficult and nearly impossible process when it comes to welcoming Syrian refugees by government or private sponsorship.

“If we compare ourselves to someone like Germany, who’s exemplary in the western world for receiving Syrian refugees, just having allowed in 800,000 Syrians, they’re sort of bringing everyone in to save their life first and then they’ll kind of sift through that second.”

“Canada does it the other way around. They sift through first, we want to know who’s here and then we don’t want to have to deal with you after that.”

Members of the Canadian Council for Refugees are trying to get rallies going in major cities across Canada September 9th. Jones says people should take advantage of our country’s upcoming election.

He suggests Canadians who want to help should ask their candidates running for election what they plan to do about the Syrian crisis.

CHCH’s Cindy Csordas will have more on this story tonight on the Evening News at 6.