Racist refugee myths, NDP delusions, Tom Mulcair & more -- December and January on The Left Chapter in review

Winter and the holidays are often a time of year where the tempo and pace of things outside of the personal -- even for the very political among us -- slows down.

December and January on The Left Chapter were no exception to this!

Over the course of the two months, however, there were still 34 posts of various types from a look at the year's best songs to Albert Einstein explaining why we need a socialist economy!

Without any further ado the top five posts in terms of hits for the months of December and January were:

1) Stop sharing the refugees vs. seniors internet myths!

Have you seen this Facebook post circulating around?

Sadly and depressingly it has been shared more than 44,000 times as of this posting.

Old myths along these lines have been around for a long time and have been repeatedly disproved and shown to be false or totally misleading.

Read More! 

2) The NDP, Nathan Cullen, Paul Dewar and the Canadian social democratic delusion

As we head into 2016 there is little that is more pathetic and disturbing from the point-of-view of that ever narrowing band of Canadian social democrats or "democratic socialists" than the descent of the New Democratic Party into a state of abject delusional thinking and total political irrelevance.

Read More! 

3) rabble.ca's Tom Mulcair poll and what it says about the disconnect in the left

There is an interesting poll being taken on the left-wing website rabble.ca right now. It asks readers to vote on the following question:

Read More! 

4) The terrorist war on women

By A.M.

“[T]he feminists have always enraged me. They want to keep the advantages of women (e.g. cheaper insurance, extended maternity leave preceded by a preventative leave, etc.) while seizing for themselves those of men.”

There is a moment in Denis Villeneuve’s movie Polytechnique where, more than any other, you truly feel the gravity of what you are seeing onscreen. It is after the murderer (unnamed in the film, but clearly analogous to Marc Lépine) has shot several women point blank with his hunting rifle. He leaves them on the floor of their classroom and goes to find more victims. Most of the women in the classroom are dead, but two remain breathing.

Read More! 

5) A Farewell to a Bookstore

“The problem with books is that they end.” -- Caroline Kepnes

Back in November, 2001 my partner Natalie and I stood together holding hands looking around a large empty retail space that was to go on, the next month, to become the used bookstore that would be a central part of our lives for the next 14 years. At our feet in his car seat was our newborn son, Nathaniel, not yet a month old.

Read More! 

The top food post for the month was "Sauteed Garlic Pepper Steak with Provencal Mushrooms and Onions".

In the coming month watch for a return of our Throwback Thursday posts and a new feature looking at left news internationally.

Do you have a left point-of-view or opinion, a recipe or a story you want to share?

Send them to The Left Chapter via theleftchapter@outlook.com!

See also: Racist Memes, Andrew Coyne, the NDP's Disaster & more! -- The Top Ten Posts and the year on The Left Chapter in review

See also: Caribbean Goat, Michael's West Indian, Ukrainian Cookery & more -- The Top 5 Food Posts of 2015!

Stop sharing the refugees vs. seniors internet myths!

Click on image to enlarge

Have you seen this Facebook post circulating around?

Sadly and depressingly it has been shared more than 44,000 times as of this posting.

Old myths along these lines have been around for a long time and have been repeatedly disproved and shown to be false or totally misleading.

As always the claim is made that refugees are somehow receiving special treatment not afforded to "Canadians". Usually, as in this case, it is claimed or implied that they receive more assistance than Canada's seniors.

This particularly odious example claims that the Vancouver Sun had an article showing that refugees would get thousands of dollars a month for food alone.

What the article actually says related to this is:

In Vancouver, due to a shortage of suitable accommodations, ISS of B.C. is suggesting the Jericho military barracks could be used as a temporary measure to house refugees before moving them to permanent housing.
As it stands now, government-assisted refugees will spend their initial two to three weeks in a reception centre in Metro Vancouver, Friesen said. This could be Welcome House in downtown Vancouver or a local hotel.
“We’re being picky. We want hotels that have kitchenettes so people can cook themselves. We want to have hotels, ideally, with more than 40 rooms because we want to centralize it as much as we can with a limited number of sites. We’re looking at hotels in Vancouver, Richmond and Surrey currently,” he explained.

and:

Between now and March, Ottawa needs 300 rooms daily in each of the two cities to house about 600 refugees per night, according to a notice posted Friday on a government procurement website. Suppliers will also be expected to provide meals.
The length of stays will vary: some will leave the next morning, others will need “two or more nights.”
Hotels will be expected to provide up to three meals a day. It states the government will reimburse up to $15 per person for breakfast, $16 for lunch and $30 for dinner.

In other words this allowance will not be for all refugees, only those who have to be put up in hotels with no kitchenettes and it will be entirely temporary! It will also not be going to the refugees but to the hotel. In some cases, as is plainly and clearly stated, it will be for only one night.

It will not be for months or, as is the case with senior's government pensions and benefits, for the rest of their lives!

These types of nasty falsehoods and distortion of facts have been around for so long and have been circulated by so many ignorant people that the government of Canada itself has had to post a notice related to it that states:

Do government-assisted refugees get more income support and benefits than Canadian pensioners do?
No. Refugees do not get more financial help from the federal government than Canadian pensioners do. A widely circulated email makes this false claim. The email mistakenly includes the one-time start-up payment as part of the monthly payment. The amount of monthly financial support that government-assisted refugees get is based on provincial social assistance rates. It is the minimum amount needed to cover only the most basic food and shelter needs.
Many refugees selected for resettlement to Canada have been forced to flee their country because of extreme hardship. Some may have been living in refugee camps for many years. When they arrive in Canada, they must start their lives again in a country very different from their own.
In keeping with Canada’s proud humanitarian traditions, individuals and families get immediate and essential services and support to help them become established in Canada.

In an article entitled "A mistake that travelled around the world and back again"  The Toronto Star also dispelled complete fictions along these lines stating:

Comparing amounts each might receive is like comparing apples oranges and bananas too, given the various means of government assistance for refugees and seniors, but here are the basic facts. First, privately sponsored refugees are not eligible for government assistance — support is the sponsors’ responsibility.
When they arrive in Canada, government-assisted refugees are eligible for monthly support aligned with provincial social assistance rates – in Ontario, less than $800 monthly. They are also eligible for a one-time — not monthly — payment to help set up their households. That’s estimated to be about $2,500 for a family of four and $950 for an individual. Monthly income support for government-assisted refugees is provided during their first year in Canada only – less time, if they become self-sufficient sooner.
According to CARP, Canadian seniors currently receive $569.95 a month in Old Age Security upon reaching age 65, for life. Lower income pensioners are also eligible for the Guaranteed Income Supplement (an additional maximum $772 a month, reduced depending on other income.) None of this takes into account what is paid by the Canada Pension Plan to those who have contributed through their earnings years.
“We certainly argue that there is a growing number of seniors who need more income supports, and we lobby for that, but we never argue that the support should come from denying much needed support to refugee families,” Susan Eng, CARP’s executive vice-president told me.

 So all of these narratives are just total nonsense.

One might also note that if any of the people sharing these false or misleading memes or chain emails actually cared about the plight faced by seniors or those living in poverty in the country they would actually mobilize and organize to do something about it -- something other than sitting around on their computers smugly sharing ludicrous internet rubbish seeking to scapegoat refugees for our own failings as a society.

See also: Stop sharing the false -- and racist -- Ontario niqab driver's licence meme

See also: BC NDP posts a meme about "foreign" workers -- Xenophobes show up in approval