‘Welcome To Canada’: First Syrian Refugees Begin To Arrive

MCIS is also using $ 25,000 of its own social impact budget to help privately sponsored Syrian refugees by providing telephone interpretation services.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was at Toronto’s airport to greet them.

Trudeau was joined by the ministers of immigration, health and defence, as well as Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, local mayors and opposition immigration critics.

“Resettling refugees demonstrates our commitment to Canadians and to the world that Canada understands that we can and must do more”, Trudeau told the House of Commons on Wednesday.

The Canadian government is covering the cost of flights but many private groups will provide financial assistance for the refugees as they fan out to 36 communities across Canada.

The second flight of around 150 Syrian refugees will arrive in Montreal from Beirut on Saturday.

“We will all remember this day”, Trudeau said shortly before greeting the refugees, many of them women and children.

Number of Syrians the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has registered as refugees from the Syrian war. The pair said they had made arrangements with airport security to have the items -and several hundreds more bags – brought to the designated terminal where the government flight landed.

– Canada closes its embassy in Damascus, a move that would come to have major repercussions for refugee resettlement out of the Middle East as that visa post handled the majority of the files for refugees from other countries who had sought temporary safety in Syria.

“We’re happy that they’re coming”, an exhausted-sounding Mr. Mirakian said by phone from his home.

Upon arrival, the refugees will be processed at the airport by officials and will then stay overnight at a hotel.

About 800 refugees are going through screening tests in Lebanon and Jordan daily, Mr McCallum said.

The Canadian government has pledged to relocate 10,000 Syrian refugees to Canada before the end of the year, and another 15,000 by the end of March.

Canada’s welcoming stands in stark contrast to the U.S.

“I don’t want to comment on politics…government announcements, I want to talk about the Canadian people”, said Beatty, who spoke at length about the efforts of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in assisting the Syrian refugees.

Charity groups have been working with the government to bring Syrian refugees to the country for months, but Thursday’s government flight is the first dedicated journey to resettle Syrians in Canada. Another four will go to Windsor, Ont. Sponsors in Kelowna, B.C. will welcome four, three will go to Coquitlam, B.C. and one to New Westminster, B.C. Twenty are bound for Calgary, Alta., and the final 15 to Edmonton, according to statistics released Thursday by the Immigration department.