Trudeau government creates committee to fast-track refugee resettlement

The Honourable John McCallum, Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship, created an Ad Hoc Committee on Refugees. The company is now working with government officials to see what can be arranged.

Air Canada has offered to help transport refugees before the holiday rush, and was in touch with the government immediately after the election.

The new Liberal cabinet will form a subcommittee to co-ordinate government efforts to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of the year, Canada’s minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship said Monday.

The airline cannot fly into Syria, but it can ferry refugees from neighbouring countries to Canada.

He said that includes ships, military and commercial aircraft.

“At this point, however, we have only exchanged preliminary information”. He couldn’t say where the refugees would be coming from – Jordan, Turkey or Lebanon, or a combination of the three – and he couldn’t say where they would go.

McCallum said the Canadian military is expected to play a major role in lodging refugees on military bases as it was done during the Kosovo refugee crisis, as well as providing air lift.

Beides McCallum, it will include Jane Philpott, Minister of Health, Chair; Mélanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage, Vice-Chair; Ralph Goodale, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness; Stéphane Dion, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Scott Brison, President of the Treasury Board; Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of worldwide Development and La Francophonie; Harjit Singh Sajjan, Minister of National Defence; and Maryam Monsef, Minister of Democratic Institutions.

“We have to clearly liaise with the governments of those countries and with the United Nations”. Those files are still being processed; as of the first week of October, only 2,563 people had arrived.

“We are working on the process for selecting the refugees, for getting exit permits for these refugees”.

McCallum said the committee is also exploring the costs of the resettlement program; in addition to the money for the UNHCR, the Liberal campaign platform said the refugee resettlement plan would cost $100 million this year and next.

“This is the new government’s first test on delivering the change they promised to Canadians”, said NDP MP Jenny Kwan. “We hope that the next announcement on how they will achieve this goal is coming very soon”.