Prime Minister Justin Trudeau encourages Canadians to share Christmas spirit

The federal immigration minister is signalling it might not be possible for Ottawa to meet its goal of bringing 10,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of next week.

McCallum’s resettlement pledge comes after the first group of refugees arrived in Canada on December 11, as part of a special program organized by the Canadian government to originally bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to the country by February 2016. In addition to meeting with the Jordanian Minister of Interior and the Minister of Planning and International Development, Minister McCallum met with the Syrian Deputy Minister of Municipal Affairs and other local officials for a tour of the Al-Akeidr landfill site, where a landfill cell is being constructed with Canadian support. “So if there’s bad weather, or if there’s people wanting to delay their flight for whatever reason, then it’s much more hard to deal with that over a period of eight days than over a period of 60 days”, he said.

Thought McCallum said a flight was en route to Montreal with 298 additional Syrian refugees, and many more flights will be arriving in what remains of 2015, he couldn’t say exactly how many.

I have been recently struck by the difference in the response to the Syrian refugee crisis in the U.S. and in Canada.

Over 1,800 Syrian refugees will be starting new lives and experiencing their first Canadian winters this season.

“I encourage all Canadians to show them a warm holiday welcome in keeping with our values of compassion, kindness, and generosity”. “We don’t know what is waiting for us in Canada”.

“This year, Canadians are welcoming thousands of Syrian refugees to our country – people who have been forced to flee their homeland due to war and conflict”, he said in a statement.

“As I have said before, this is like a wave”, McCallum noted, with the initial build-up still happening before a peak of arrivals in the coming weeks.

Friesen says Canada is the only country in the world that charges refugees interest on the loans they’re issued when brought to this country – and the issue is causing a stir in the refugee community.

Cober Bauman, with the Mennonite Central Committee, says overall, Canadians are supportive.