What Canada can learn from Germany s mass, unplanned migration
Five years ago, more than a million refugees arrived in Germany. Today, many are working full-time. Here are the lessons Canada can learn from what went right and wrong in Germany.
February 2, 2021 Shmayess (right) left Syria for Görlitz, Germany, in 2015; his wife, Ammar, joined him a year later and the couple recently opened a restaurant (Photograph by Sadiya Ansari)
When Sami Shmayess was visiting his parents in his hometown of Latakia, Syria, in 2008, he met a German family who were on a year-long trip in their van. Long stretches of beach on the Mediterranean coast made the port city a popular holiday destination, and it was on a walk by the water where Shmayess’s parents spotted the Germans and invited them over for dinner and a hot shower. Shmayess quickly became friends with them. Eight years later, it was their turn to invite Shmayess to stay with them in Görlitz, a small city in the eastern part of Ger