Canada Welcomes First Planeload of Syrian Refugees

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

Stressing that the data was not yet fully compiled, she said more than 200,000 people had arrived in October and that worsening weather appeared to be reducing flows. Another planeload of refugees is expected to arrive Saturday.

The first Syrian refugee family to arrive at Canada Migrations, Dec. 11. “I am pleased to support this initiative that will allow newcomers to discover Canadian culture through enriching cultural and artistic experiences”, said Mélanie Joly, the Minister for Canadian Heritage in a press release.

Despite the mixed reactions to refugees around the world (especially in the neighboring United States), the Times reports that there’s been a “widespread embrace” of Trudeau’s refugee plans by the Canadian public.

Trudeau and several members of his Liberal government were on hand to greet the Syrians as they arrived on a troop transport plane in Toronto.

“I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, and I really hope you like it here in Canada”, one boy said.

Canada’s much more populous southern neighbor plans to take in just 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year, and even that is provoking opposition.

But that policy was sharply criticized after the death of a 3-year-old Syrian boy, whose body on a Turkish beach became the defining image of the refugee crisis.

Of the 163 people who arrived Thursday, 116 will head to new homes in the Toronto area. The others are sponsored by Canadians in British Columbia as well as another part of Ontario and Alberta.

Of course, we’re still only two months into the new government, and policies-and, indeed public opinion-can quickly change.

Canada has long prided itself on opening its doors to asylum-seekers.