First planeload of Syria refugees to arrive in Toronto on Thursday

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau predicted “a great day” as he revealed the first planeload of Syrian refugees would arrive at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport on Thursday evening.

Trudeau announced the first plane’s arrival on Wednesday.

While just over 400 refugees have arrived in Canada since the Liberals were sworn into power on November 4, Thursday marks the start of a program that’s been weeks in the making as officials in Canada and overseas have scrambled to help the Liberals meet their campaign promise to resettle 25,000 people. McCallum said Canadian officials were now interviewing a total of 800 refugees each day in Amman and Beirut.

“They are used to bringing people in, the numbers of course are larger than usual but I think the experience you have will stand you in good stead there”, he said.

Nearly 12,000 applications have been processed to date, according to the government.

“I want to re-emphasize that we have fully restored the interim federal health program for our Syrian refugees… both the basic benefits and the supplementary benefits will be available to all of them”, he said. A further 15,000 are expected to arrive by the end of February. “Some days there is good news, as today with the exit visas (for Lebanon)”.

“As we know in Canada, things sometimes change after elections, so we are guardedly optimistic that this progress on exit visas will continue, but it’s not a guarantee. We always had three countries with which we were working from the beginning, and if one country produces more, another may produce less, but putting the three together, we are certainly working very hard to realize our targets”.

Meanwhile, McCallum cited a recent poll that suggested a growing number of Canadians are in favour of accepting 25,000 Syrian refugees. This isn’t a new announcement, said McCallum, but “not all the doctors, the medical community across the country was necessarily aware”.

He said groups who have formal contracts with the government for settlement services will get more money this year.

“The Canadian Armed Forces has a strong history of supporting humanitarian operations, including, when necessary, the transportation and temporary housing of refugees”, said Harjit S. Sajjan, Minister of Defence.