The Global Refugee Crisis: How Should We Respond?

In a provocative debate, Arbour, a former UN high commissioner for human rights, and Schama, a historian—both proponents of more open policies with respect to asylum-seekers—clashed with Farage, a former leader of the U.K. Independence Party, and Steyn, a conservative author and human rights activist, on the challenges that the global refugee crisis presents to Western society. This print transcript of the 18th semiannual Munk Debate vividly preserves the charged atmosphere in Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, where the intensely emotional debate was held on April 1, 2016, and enhances it with pre-debate interviews with the participants. Readers will be captivated by the strong arguments, passionate tone, and numerous examples of the ill-prepared responses of Western countries to the worst humanitarian crisis since WWII. Covering topics such as the responses of Canada, the U.S., and their European allies to the refugee crisis, and how the influx of refugee seekers from Syria affects the security of developed nations, the debate breaks stereotypes and challenges the established perspectives of the refugee crisis. (Mar.)