This is about showing leadership and doing what is right as Canadians and we are doing the right thing by immediately helping 25,000 Syrian refugees.
Advertisement
The offer follows a similar one last week by fellow Calgary-based Boardwalk Rental Community to provide 350 apartments across the Prairies and in Montreal, and Westbank Corp.’s donation of 12 fully furnished and stocked apartments in downtown Vancouver.
The Canadian government is set to spend $450 million settling in the refugees, says the Wall Street Journal. “Canada will make a difference, and we encourage all Canadians to do what they can to help”.
Administration officials say security and humanitarian constraints are concerns for the leaders, with as many 5,000 migrants reaching Europe each day over the so-called Balkan migrant route. “We’ve done it before and we will do it again”, he said.
The government will work with the governments of Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, along with global and Canadian partners.
The federal government on Tuesday announced it was aiming to welcome the refugees by the end of February rather than January 1 and said all necessary security checks would be carried out in the region rather than in Canada.
The government also has several thousand applications in processing for privately sponsored refugees (PSRs) under way, and these will be included as part of the commitment.
Thursday’s announcement brings to $969 million the total amount of humanitarian assistance from Canada in response to the Syrian crisis.
In Jordan, the United Nations began weeks ago to identify 7,000 Syrians so they could be in Canada by the end of the year in line with the original Liberal plan.
Settlement agencies, upon which government-assisted refugees rely, have had their budgets decimated in the past few years, Milner said.
Prime Minister Trudeau says welcoming Syrian refugees to Canada will produce economic and social benefits.
The with first wave of refugees are expected to arrive in early December and will be housed temporarily in former military barracks, vacant hospitals and hotels, as well as with families who have volunteered to sponsor a refugee or family.
“The more phases we remove in this, the more directly we bring them here to the communities – for people who’ve been running away from war and settling here and there and living in their suitcases, the better it is”, he said.
Advertisement
Rempel also noted: “Canada is an open and generous country”.
