In Canada, recently elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a Liberal, has backed off a campaign promise to welcome 25,000 Syrian refugees there by New Year’s Day – limiting the intake of exhausted, poor and huddled masses this year to 10,000, as long as none of them are single, heterosexual Syrian men. And I don’t think anybody is really going to hold them to task for a January 1st deadline.
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But Trudeau’s enthusiasm for bringing Syrians displaced by conflict to Canada has not abated, and will take place in 2016. Security was a concern that Canadians had when we were welcoming impoverished East African refugees who then turned around in the Ismaili community and contributed untold success and growth to Canada.
November 24, 2015 – Ottawa, ON – The Government of Canada is taking immediate action to welcome 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada as quickly as possible, through a five-phase national plan. He said once terrorists get into the country it wouldn’t be hard for them to move around.
Canada has already accepted 3,089 Syrian refugees, and will invest up to $678 million over the next six years toward resettling and integrating the 25,000 new arrivals.
“We will welcome them with a smile”, McCallum said.
“This is not about security”.
Canadians have seen in the past that helping people flee intolerable situations produces a more diverse and resilient country, he says. Robust health and security screening will be completed overseas.
But Mulcair said the “campaign is over” and now is the time for politicians of all stripes to work together and address the largest refugee crisis since World War II.
“We want to make sure there is no discrimination”, Heritage Minister Melanie Joly said.
The criticism of the decision by the Government in Ottawa was intensified after the attacks in Paris with 130 dead.
He said the Paris attacks did affect the public psyche.
The BBC adds gay men and women to the list of Syrians who will be granted refugee status more swiftly.
“I was aware that there might be concerns when I sat down with President [Barack] Obama last week”.
But despite the seemingly last-minute changes, all say the effort remains essential and just as urgent. Canada’s focus will be on identifying vulnerable refugees who are a lower security risk.
The government-sponsored resettlement program will initially not include unaccompanied or single adult males.
In a statement released during his visit to London, Mr Trudeau said of meeting the Queen as a youngster: “She was always lovely and gracious”.
The Department of Homeland Security website says there are more than 2,200 Border Patrol agents working on what it calls the “Northern border”, a 500 percent increase since 9/11.
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Trudeau’s father also served as prime minister and is remembered for being captured doing a pirouette behind the queen by a photographer against palace protocols.
