Toronto to receive first Syrian refugees
‘It will be a great day,’ says Trudeau, who will be at Pearson to welcome migrants
OTTAWA— Toronto will play host to the first flight of Syrian refugees Thursday, with a military aircraft bringing 150 of the tens of thousands of people set to arrive in the coming months.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he’ll be there to welcome the first flight of refugees, scheduled to land at Pearson International Airport just after 9 p.m.
“Resettling refugees demonstrates our commitment to Canadians and to the world that Canada understands that we can and must do more,” Trudeau told the House of Commons. “It will be a great day.” A second flight is scheduled to arrive at Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport on Saturday. Although the first two flights will be on military planes, the government expects the remaining flights in December to be private charters.
The arrivals will cap off a month of political effort and a massive behindthe-scenes bureaucratic push to make good on the Liberals’ pledge to bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees.
The government had promised to bring in that number by the end of the year. But after a special cabinet committee led by Health Minister Jane Philpott examined the logistics, the Liberals pushed that deadline back to the end of February.
The government still hopes to resettle 10,000 refugees — mostly privately sponsored — by the end of the year, with15,000 following in the first two months of 2016.
Figures released Wednesday by Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada show that 416 Syrians have arrived in Canada since Nov. 4. A further 1,451 refugees have been issued permanent resident visas, and are awaiting transportation to Canada.
A total of 11,932 applications are in process, and funding for resettlement assistance centres has been in- creased by $3.6 million to “deal with this huge flow of refugees quite suddenly,” Immigration Minister John McCallum said Wednesday.
Canadian officials believe they’ve resolved issues with the government of Lebanon over issuing exit visas to refugees — an early roadblock to Ottawa’s efforts. McCallum said Canadian officials are interviewing a combined average of 800 people per day at two refugee processing centres in Jordan and Lebanon.
The relative speed of processing refugees in those two countries partially offsets significant challenges in Turkey, the third country from which Canada hopes to draw refugees.
But officials are still hopeful the federal government can hit its amended targets.
“A certain number of individuals have been identified, but we are not nearly as far advanced in Turkey as in the other countries,” McCallum admitted in a press conference Wednesday.
“But you see, we never put all our eggs in one basket. 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.”
Part of the challenge is that, unlike Jordan and Lebanon, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is not active on the ground in Turkey, where nearly 2.2 million Syrians live.
The UN has been instrumental in Canada’s push to bring in Syrians, identifying refugees and referring them to Canadian officials after initial interviews.
For the 150 Syrians landing in Toronto Thursday night, the first stop will be a specialized border screening centre run by the CBSA at Pearson’s infield terminal. The centre will offer warm clothes and food, as well as a play area for children and space to rest for parents after their day-long journey.
The refugees will be given a night’s stay in nearby hotels. For privately sponsored refugees, the next day will be their first in the communities that have raised money and resources to welcome them to a new life in Canada.
Haidah Amirzadeh, an Iranian refugee who arrived in Canada in 1989, told The Canadian Press that she believes the newly arrived Syrians will quickly find their footing in their new country.
“I think, especially when somebody has been in such a difficult situation for so long, when they arrive to an opportunity, they really grab onto it,” Amirzadeh said. “Nobody wants to be a burden.”