i'll tell you what....

i'd be more willing to support funds for refugee resettlement if they were matched, dollar-for-dollar, by funds to address the staggering problem of homelessness amongst young queer people on this continent.

and, how about this: for every refugee that you resettle, you resettle a canadian homeless person, too.

and, i'd also like to see the people that want to bring refugees in put funds aside to deal with the inevitable conflict that is going to arise between secularists and religionists. this is going to include funds for court battles to prevent the religionists from discriminating against queer people, atheists and women and funds for policing to ensure that certain aspects of their religion are repressed. if you want an example, fgm is an example: that cannot be tolerated. period.

once we've addressed these issues, the next thing we're going to need to do is commit to a dialogue about opening the religion up to allow for greater participation by women, by queer people and by other groups that it currently discriminates against.

if all of these conditions are met, i'll be less apprehensive about bringing in refugees.

but, the honest truth is that this is a headache that i'd rather not deal with. we have enough fundamentalists to deal with already, as it is....