MONTREAL–Over 150 Syrian refugees will be finding a new home Saturday night. After a long flight from Lebanon, the arrivals will land in Montreal’s Trudeau airport.
They’ll go through immigration, be provided with legal documents and then be taken by bus to a nearby welcome centre.
From there, they’ll be greeted by organizations including the Canadian Red Cross.
Pascal Mathieu, the Quebec Vice President of the Red Cross explained to Global News why his organization’s presence is so important.
“The refugees have been helped by the Red Cross within the war zone. They’ve seen us in action,” said Mathieu.
“They’ve also seen us in the camps where they come from.”
This is the second government plane transporting Syrians to Canada. The first landed in Toronto earlier this week, with Prime Minister Trudeau on site to greet them.
READ MORE: 1st planeload of Syrian refugees land on Canadian soil
What the Red Cross has learned from past experience is how important it is to give refugees a chance to call their loved ones back home, something they will be helping with at the welcome centre.
The Red Cross says the call gives Syrians the opportunity to say to their family:
“don’t worry, we’re in Canada, the kids are safe and it’s not that cold.”
To make sure the refugees stay warm during the winter, community centers have been hard at work.
Bilal Hamideh, the Executive Director of Refugee Sponsorship of Greater Montreal, explains that the Laurentian Community Center has been gathering food, clothes and blankets.
READ MORE: 2nd planeload of Syrian refugees to land in Montreal Saturday night
“We are gathering any kind of donation to help distribute it to the Syrian refugees who are arriving not only today but in the next three months.”
For Hamideh, today is personal and a step in the right direction.
“I still have two sisters who are in Syria, who did not come with us in 1988,” he said.
“They were already married and had kids and under the rules of immigration, we cannot sponsor our siblings,” Hamideh went on to explain.
Fadi Zelhof, another volunteer, left Damascus when he was 18 to study at McGill University in Montreal.
“I really think its very easy to integrate because there’s a very big Syrian community in Montreal and they are very supportive of newly incoming people,” he says.
He’s picking up groceries for the refugees with the hope that one day his friends trapped in Syria will be reunited with him.
“I hope this carries on and that we see more and more of them coming here,” Zelhof told Global News.
When you speak to the Syrian community in Montreal, you really get a sense of just how meaningful this arrival is to them.
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