The minister of immigration and citizenship, John McCallum, said the country’s resettlement programme would be expanded in 2016 to take 50,000.
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Canada’s recently elected Liberal government campaigned on a promise to accept 25,000 refugees by the end of the year.
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The cause of the delay, he said, included poor flying weather, refugees wanting to say goodbye to family and friends, and other circumstances beyond government control.
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His new Liberal government had promised to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of February.
McCallum also said that he hopes to engage with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Jordanian government, as well as the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to assist the Canadian government further with the screening process.
However, McCallum said he is “confident” that Ottawa will meet its overall target to resettle refugees “well before” the end of February. McCallum said the countrys resettlement program for Syrian refugees could double by the end of 2016.
The Trudeau government is now expected to miss its already reduced target to bring in 10,000 refugees from Syria by the end of the year.
However, Mr. McCallum said there are no guarantees that the full capacity will be used.
As of December 21, 1,869 refugees had landed in Canada. “This reaffirms for me Canada must do its part to urgently resettle some of these Syrian refugees to Canada”, said McCallum.
Three more flights are scheduled by December 31st.
An Air Transat flight left from Amman, Jordan earlier today and is expected to arrive in Montreal at 6:30 p.m. ET, according to a release by the airline, although the airline’s statement put the number of refugees aboard at 304, not 298 as announced at the briefing.
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It did so after listening to the widespread concerns of Canadians about proper security vetting and whether government and private agencies and individuals sponsoring refugees would be ready to integrate them into Canada successfully in such a short time frame.
