OTTAWA-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the Liberals will run annual deficits “around $10 billion” but says boosting the economy is more important than keeping a strict cap on the annual budget shortfall in the next couple of years. Presidential candidate Donald Trump caused a worldwide uproar with a proposal to block Muslims from entering the U.S.
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Trudeau confirmed the details Wednesday during question period in the House of Commons, saying that the Toronto flight was scheduled to arrive at 9:15 p.m.
Immigration Minister John McCallum says the government is pumping another 3.6-million dollars into the budget for groups welcoming refugees to Canada.
McCallum said about 800 refugees are being screened by security and health officers each day in Lebanon and Jordan.
Initially, that promise had been to bring all those people to Canada by year’s end, but the government was forced to spread the commitment over a longer time period because of the logistics involved.
The relative speed of processing refugees in those two countries partially offsets significant challenges in Turkey, the third country Canada hopes to draw Syrian refugees from. The boy had relatives in Canada, and the refugee crisis became a major campaign issue.
“We would rather not have to engage in retaliatory measures, but we certainly will, to stand up for our farmers, to stand up for Canadians who have been unfairly addressed and affected by this legislation”, the recently elected Trudeau told reporters. But large numbers of people are still looking to Canada for refuge.
All refugees will also be checked for signs of illness when they arrive in Canada, per the Quarantine Act, and treatment will be available if anyone is ill upon arrival.
Roadblocks to getting the program off the ground have included getting the United Nations to find enough cases to refer to Canada for possible resettlement, technical hiccups regarding biometric screening equipment and diplomatic wrangling with governments in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey over exit visas.
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But officials are still hopeful the federal government can hit its amended target of bringing in 10,000 by the end of the year, with another 15,000 following in the early months of 2016.
