Debate In Canada About Lebanese-Canadians

Apparently the evacuation of 15,000 Lebanese-Canadians during last war is causing a divisive debate in Canada about whether or not Canadian tax-payers should pay for the evacuation of Lebanese who live in Lebanon but hold Canadian passports.

It seems what most angers some Canadians and what pushed this conservative government to scrutinize dual citizenship is that most of the evacuees went back to Lebanon after the emergency was over:

[critics] do not like the fact that some [..] Lebanese-Canadians simply went back to their established lives in Lebanon, and tucked away their Canadian passports for the next emergency.

“If you are on vacation and you are a taxpayer, you are entitled to get all the help that your government could afford,” said Elias Bejjani, chairman of the Lebanese-Canadian Co-ordinating Council.

As for those who simply took the free ride — a sealift from Beirut to Cyprus or Turkey and then a flight back to Canada — and who don’t pay taxes in Canada, Bejjani said they probably should have been billed.

Some Tough questions are being asked. Check the wording of this one:

If Lebanon is bombed again will Canada spend 80 million to bring the so called Canadian-Lebanese that live in Lebanon not Canada on vacation for a few weeks again?Do you think that people who were evacuated last time only to leave in two weeks since their lives are in Lebanon should not be eligible for evacuation again or do you think since they have the citizenship the government is obligated to evacuate them?

So, what do you think about all of this? Does it have an element of racism, or is it simply the duty of the government to make sure that taxpayer money is well spent?