Juno News - January 12, 2019Justin Trudeau says we shouldn’t care about crimes committed by migrants
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Summary
In this episode, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responds to a question about the murder of a young girl by a Syrian refugee, Marissa Shen, who was found dead in a public park near her home in Burnaby, B.C.
Transcript
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My question is regarding the settlement of refugees.
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In July 2017, a child named Marissa Shen was found dead in a public park near her home
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Last year, police charged with murder a 28-year-old man named Ibrahim Ali, a Syrian refugee who
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had come to Canada three months before Marissa Shen was killed.
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In an interview you did with Maclean's, the interviewer said, quote, a lot of people say
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that if it hadn't been for the surge in Syrian refugees after the 2015 election, this guy
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To which you replied, I'm not one of those people who says that.
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My question is, can you guarantee that Marissa Shen was not killed by a Syrian refugee who
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And if not, what in your opinion is the acceptable number of Canadian lives lost as a result of
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I told you we were going to hear from a wide range of perspectives.
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And I think I understand your concerns, sir, and I understand the frustration.
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Violent crime and what Marissa Shen's family has gone through, what the community has gone
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through, any violent crime, any violent murder is a terrible tragedy.
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And we have a judicial system, we have a process through which to go there.
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But the generalizations and the danger that we get in in tying things like immigration policies
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to incidents like this is something that I don't entirely know is helpful or useful in a diverse,
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The safety and well-being of all Canadians is at the forefront of our responsibility as a society.
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And we need to do everything we can to keep all our children safe.
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But to set up a false dichotomy that says, well, part of everything we need to do to keep Canadians safe is
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to keep people from a way out of this country is simply not the way we are as Canadians.
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And it is not how we are going to build a brighter future.
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We benefit when people come from other parts of this world and bring their stories, bring
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their hard work, bring their hopes to build a better future for their kids and grandkids
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That is what has contributed so much to our success over these past centuries.
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And at the time where the world is hardening in its hearts to immigration and not seeing
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the economic benefits of welcoming in people who are looking for nothing more than the opportunity
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to work hard and build a better future for themselves and their kids, I think there is an extraordinary
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opportunity for Canada and we have actually seen it over these past years with initiatives
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we have had on the Global Skills Strategy which allows people to come to Canada to work and
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There have been extraordinarily positive examples and on the issue of Syrian refugees.
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I have to say the fact that Canada and Canadians opened up our hearts and our homes and our
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communities right across the country to welcome 40,000 people who were fleeing for their lives
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from a country devastated by civil war that have contributed in so many ways to making this
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country a better place is something that I think we all can be proud of, we all can be grateful
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of the generosity of the many church groups, community groups, families who opened up their hearts
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and homes to welcoming people who were fleeing for their lives and wanted nothing more than
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to contribute to a better country and that's something we should all be proud of.