Canada aims to double Syrian refugee intake next year

The Liberals aren’t certain they’ll meet their target of getting 10,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of the year, Immigration Minister John McCallum said Wednesday, owing to the “human and weather element”.

Canadian Minister of Immigration John McCallum, center, talks to a Syrian family soon to be flown from an airport in Amman, Jordan to live in Canada, Sunday, Dec. 20, 2015.

“I am convinced that by the end of the year, 10,000 or more Syrian refugees will be confirmed, certified as Canadian permanent residents”, McCallum said.

Under its present plan, Ottawa will airlift all 10,000 privately-sponsored refugees to Canada by December 31, before airlifting the remaining 15,000 government-sponsored Syrians by the end of February 2016.

Mr. McCallum said the government is “moving heaven and earth” to bring in as many refugees as quickly as possible, rejecting the argument that he was “playing politics with people’s lives” by making unrealistic promises to refugees.

There is a flight scheduled to leave the Middle East on Christmas Day and land in Canada on Boxing Day, with there is capacity to bring up to five flights a day before New Year’s Eve.

McCallum pointed at a number of factors like unfriendly weather conditions and refugees wanting to bid their families and friends goodbye, which are beyond the control of the government, as contributing to the delay.

Canada has vowed to double its intake of Syrian refugees next year. The Canadian government have agreed to cover the cost of travel for Syrian refugees, although other refugee groups still need to pay for their travel to Canada. But it pushed its deadline back to February after the deadly November attacks in Paris, saying it would bring in 10,000 by year-end. McCallum held talks with both the Lebanese and Jordanian governments in which he reaffirmed Ottawa’s support for assisting and resettling refugees.

The first refugee flight, carrying 160 Syrians from Beirut, landed in Toronto on December 10.

On Wednesday, in his first Christmas video message, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau encouraged the country to show generosity to “thousands of people who are experiencing the Canadian holidays and the Canadian winter for the first time-the Syrian refugees”.