Trudeau has said 10,000 will be resettled by the end of the year and a further 15,000 by the end of February.
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A group of 163 Syrian refugees received a special welcome early Friday morning from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other politicians at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport.
Syrian refugees will have the chance to immerse themselves in Canadian culture for free, thanks to a new initiative announced on Friday.
Nearby, Shai Reef, 20, held up a sign that read: “Welcome to Canada” in Arabic.
Canadians eager to show their support for the newcomers were not deterred by the fact that they could not do so face-to-face as the refugees were processed in a secure area.
The Toronto Star, the country’s largest newspaper, printed “Welcome to Canada” on its front page to greet its new residents.
Canada’s Immigration and Refugees Minister John McCallum has lauded the efforts of Sikhs to help thousands fleeing Syria, a media report said. “Now, we feel as if we got out of hell and we came to paradise”.
While headlines in the USA have been dominated by calls from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to ban all Muslims from entering the country in the wake of the deadly attack by a Muslim couple in San Bernardino, in Canada the government has pledged to go ahead with its refugee resettlement plan.
The first stop for most of the refugees was the St. Mary Armenian Apostolic Church, where they attended a mass before meeting with community members who sponsored them.
“We encourage other states to engage in these programmes”.
“We will be working in coming days to ensure, to do everything we possibly can, working on the ground in Jordan and Lebanon and in Turkey, to ensure the processing goes quickly, to ensure the planes are available”, McCallum said. “The Canadians are extremely welcoming”.
“The government of Canada interviews the refugees, records their biometrics and is responsible for security screening”, Doyle said.
Refugees are being bussed to the Amman centre, which is housed on a former Jordanian military hangar, from other parts of the country, an IOM press release said.
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President Obama in September directed his administration to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refuges in this fiscal year, a sixfold increase over the number accepted during the last fiscal year. “It’s about the hard work we’re all going to do in the coming weeks, months and indeed years to ensure that everyone who passes through here tonight and in the weeks and months to come are able to build a life for themselves, for their family and also contribute fully to the continued growth of this extraordinary country”.
