“It’s 24 hours daylight here – you can’t fast the whole month”.
Advertisement
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greeted more than 160 Syrian refugees as they arrived in Toronto late Thursday night.
A second flight is set to arrive in Montreal on Saturday.
The recently elected Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, said, “This is a wonderful night”, and explained that his country was “showing the world how to open our hearts”, according to the news portal. Trudeau has said 10,000 will be resettled by the end of the year and a further 15,000 by the end of February.
Even with the delay, it is an unprecedented number to be brought in on such a short timeline, dwarfing the influx of 5,000 Kosovars who fled to Canada in 1999. Still, “they’re excited, they’re ready”.
“They cried when they left their family, for about two minutes”, she said.
Refugees now in Lebanon are being transferred to Jordan before taking flights to Canada, IOM said.
“We really would like to thank you for all this hospitality and the warm welcome”, the father said to Trudeau through an interpreter. “Now, we feel as if we got out of hell and we came to paradise”. “And they will be safe here”. Those refugees were mostly sponsored by private Canadian citizens and groups and flown in on passenger aircrafts. Their arrival date has not yet been confirmed.
Canada’s commitment reflects the change in government after October’s election.
The country plans to resettle some 25,000 refugees by March, while the US plans to take in 10,000 refugees over the next year. “The refugees’ welcome there has been underpinned by its community integration programmes”. Once in Beirut, they struggled to find work, she added.
“Part of getting ready, oddly enough, is managing the incredible generosity of Canadians”.
Using the hashtag, #CanadiansWelcome, people of all ages have been sending messages which World Vision Canada will pass on to the refugees, the first of which arrived on Thursday.
Advertisement
Sajjan says some of the security concerns that have been expressed about bringing in refugees are valid, but when you meet their families, you understand their desperate need. The US doesn’t seem like that.
