Canada’s immigration minister conceded on Wednesday morning that his government may not hit its target of welcoming 10,000 Syrian refugees onto Canadian soil by Dec. 31, but said he remains very confident that 25,000 will have arrived “well before” the end of February.
In his weekly update on the refugee resettlement process, John McCallum said 10,000 refugees should have their permanent residency documents in hand by the end of this month. The question will be whether all of them will have actually landed by the same date.
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“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. A plane was in the air on Wednesday morning with 298 Syrians bound for Montreal, McCallum said. Their arrival is expected to push the total number of refugees now in Canada to “well over 2,000.” About five planeloads of refugees can land each day, but that has not been happening.
Not including Wednesday morning’s arrivals, the total number of landed refugees as of this week was 1,869. Of those:
- 339 are government-assisted refugees
- 233 are blended government-assisted/privately sponsored refugees
- 1,297 are privately sponsored refugees
The minister blamed weather issues and “human nature” for the low number of arrivals to date, saying not every person who receives their documentation can be ready to board a plane within a few days. To hit the 10,000 target, over 1,000 people would have to disembark at a Canadian airport each day from now until the end of the month. There will be no flights landing on Christmas Day, McCallum confirmed, but some may be taking off to begin their journey to Canada.
“We need a little time. There’s only so many hours in the day.”
McCallum also announced that Ottawa will provide an additional $15 million to resettlement agencies, on top of the $3.6 million announced last week. Private donors have also been helping to fund the resettlement project, with CN, RBC and Scotiabank contributing a combined $8.5 million in recent days. An anonymous company gave another $2 million, McCallum said, and the Muslim community in the Greater Toronto Area has contributed over $7 million through various fundraisers and by sponsoring hundreds of families privately.
Material donations like clothing, household items and even knitted toques have been pouring in from across the country.
“It is a great sign of the generosity of all Canadians, according to their means,” McCallum said.
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