The Liberal government, which had pledged to take in the full number of refugees this year, said another 15,000 would now arrive in 2016, by the end of February.
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On Monday, the National Post reported Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with his cabinet to address security concerns regarding his plan to grant asylum to 25,000 Syrian refugees.
“I’ve heard Canadians across the country say, ‘Yes, you have to do it right, and if it takes a little bit longer to do it right then take the extra time, ‘” he said.
“And so essentially this is what we are going to be doing”.
The federal government will invest up to $678 million over six years toward expediting the resettlement and ensuring integration support for these Syrian refugees.
“All these refugees are vulnerable but some are more vulnerable than others, for example, women, families and also members of religious minorities who are oppressed”, he said. Ramadan, who is Qmunity’s volunteer coordinator, volunteers with the organization Rainbow Refugee, which helps LGBT refugees and is sponsoring a lesbian refugee in Turkey.
But the large role first envisioned for the Canadian Forces, including potentially housing up to 13,000 refugees, has been scaled back.
All health and security screening will take place overseas and once that’s complete, refugees will be flown to Toronto and Montreal, largely on chartered aircraft. “From day one, we have repeatedly said that we will not compromise the quality of the security work that must get done”, said Ralph Goodale, Canada’s public safety minister.
In a conversation with AFP, Quebec’s prime minister rejected reports that single men would be “excluded”.
Canada will be working closely with the United Nations Refugee Agency which will be contacting some refugees by text message to ask if they want to come to Canada.
Brad Wall, the Conservative premier of Saskatchewan province, said he has problems with the deadline of December 31 for security reasons and concerns about the cost, but believes Canada should welcome the refugees.
– The Liberal government announces its plan to resettle 25,000 Syrians. He also noted the Canadian military has previously helped resettle refugees, including more than 5,000 mainly Muslim Kosovars in a 1999 airlift, and helped evacuate about 7,000 Ismaili Muslims expelled by Idi Amin in Uganda in 1972.
Trudeau said the attacks in Paris did not impact his decision.
“However, if even a small number of individuals who wish to do harm to our country are able to enter Canada as a result of a rushed refugee resettlement process, the results could be devastating”. Rather than all of them being government-sponsored, an estimated 8,000 of those earliest arrivals will be privately sponsored.
Health Minister Jane Philpott expects the refugees that arrive will thrive in Canada.
“So they will have some people in their own community as they go to this new place”, McCallum explained.
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Canadian officials, in announcing the plan at a press conference, also said the government would scale back its ambitious plan to accept 25,000 refugees from the war-torn country before January.
