What the man said

This is what the Calgary, Alberta, Canada mayor said after a public meeting:

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi:

"I had a meeting this morning where we had a community forum on refugees. And I was a little bit nervous walking in because it was an open invitation, anybody could come, and I thought there might be some angry people or people with a lot of very difficult questions. And who was there were churches and synagogues and temples and mosques and grandmothers and volunteers and people from across the community, who were just asking the same question, which is by the way still by far the most common question I get, how can I help? And at one point a First Nations woman stood up. I only knew that because she said, I am a First Nations woman. I thought she was going to say, why are we having all this focus on these refugees when we have so many problems closer to home? And what she actually said was, I need some help. Because I need to understand how and when they’re coming because I want to make sure, and many of my First Nations colleagues, want to make sure that when these people come, we have an opportunity to have the elders there to drum them in and to do a smudge ceremony so we can welcome them to this land... I might have lost it at that point."

This is served to you as an antidote to all the hate, prejudice and racism out there.

Syria

The comic linked below is easily read and understood and captures the whole situation in Syria succinctly.

There are many reasons for the refugee crisis but the major one is climate change. Millions of small farms have been wiped out. I and many more have maintained for years, that the next global catastrophe and massive migrations of starving people will be over water. This is just the beginning.

See it here.

So it takes the death of one small boy to make the world sit up and take notice. And I do wonder why my small province, hungry for immigrants, can't hold out its welcoming hand to these desperate refugees. I'm sure they would contribute, at the highest level, to Canada as a whole and to Newfoundland particularly.

Climate Refugees

I met my first such people on Sunday.

Sunday afternoons are the rehearsal times for my new play, "Spancel". This wonderful gentleman showed up as a volunteer to paint scenery. He is an incredible artist. His wife will be acting/singing in the play.

He was roped in to reading a timing runthrough of Act 1. And thoroughly enjoyed himself.

He and his wife wound up here four years ago and started an art gallery and coffee shop across the bay. She is multi-talented as well, I had briefly met her in the past and am looking forward to getting to know her a lot better.

As is the way, we traded life stories. They had investigated impending catstrophic climate change and resolved, before it was too late, to come to a cooler climate. They proceeded to check out all the northern states of the USA and followed this with the provinces of Canada.

Newfoundland blew them away, so they applied for landed emigrant status and achieved this a year later.

It will take a further three years for them to attain Canadian Citizenship. They are like me, totally in love with Newfoundland and its people and they are contributing greatly to the bay communities in which we live and the further enhancement of same.

They are originally from Oklahoma and have encountered other Americans who have moved way out here to the edge of the Atlantic, for a variety of reasons.