Canada will resettle 25000 Syrian refugees by end of February

The government will fly in 10,000 refugees by the end of the year and the remainder by end-February.

The Liberal administration, which had pledged to take in the full number of refugees from camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon this year, said 15,000 would now arrive in the first two months of 2016.

Government officials promised “robust” health and security screenings, to be done overseas, and said military and private aircraft would assist with transportation of refugees to Canada. “Like I said, we want these families arriving to be welcomed, not feared”, he said during an interview Tuesday with the CBC.

The Canadian military has freed up 6,000 beds on bases across Ontario and Quebec but Syrian refugees will only go to those locations as a last resort if housing can’t be found elsewhere.

The program is estimated to cost the federal government $678 million over the next six years. One of the anticipated policy changes would allow single gay men to seek refugee status while excluding “lone” straight men as potential terrorists, according to the Ottawa Citizen.

But while some members of the Conservative caucus have been unreservedly critical of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s original commitment to bring all of the refugees into Canada by January 1 – MP Candice Bergen tweeted she is “embarrassed and sickened” by the Liberal leader for his stance on refugees and Canada’s ISIS mission – Watts said she has no issue with the general principle of accepting refugees.

The debate over accepting refugees has raged across the world as the conflict, which began in 2011 between the government of Bashar al-Assad and opposition forces and has since devolved into an internecine bloodbath, has sent millions into exile in the surrounding countries.

The RCMP, which is involved in the screening of Syrian refugees along with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said in a statement that it has nothing to add beyond what commissioner Bob Paulson had said at a November 18 news conference. While the government will “prioritize” families, women at risk, LGBTQ minorities, and those who are accompanying elderly parents, it will not be disqualifying any would-be refugee on the basis of gender.

“I think everyone is more comfortable with this extended deadline, and even though it does mean a little bit of a broken campaign promise – this is something we can all live with”.

IN lawsuit: The ACLU in IN has filed a federal lawsuit against Gov. Mike Pence over his decision to suspend the relocation of Syrian refugees in the state, reports the Indianapolis Star.

But she said that many Canadians are ready to open their arms to the waves of refugees about to start arriving in the country next week.

Officials also said the refugees will be fully screened before they enter Canada.

The executive director of the Canadian Council of Refugees, Janet Dench, said Tuesday’s announcement was “long overdue”. Groups of five people can also sponsor Syrians whom the United Nations has recognized as refugees living in exile. Others said they could not cope with such a heavy flow of new arrivals.

Goodspeed says support for the operation suffered a setback after the Paris attacks. It airlifted more than 5,000 people from Kosovo in the late 1990s, more than 5,000 from Uganda in 1972 and resettled 60,000 Vietnamese in 1979-80.