Broken vow, or were Libs just swinging for fences?

Government won’t meet its goal of bringing 10,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by Jan. 1, but most don’t seem to think that matters

Barring a miraculous last-minute revolution in air travel, the Liberal government will likely miss its (amended) goal of bringing 10,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by Jan. 1.

As of Wednesday evening, the government’s figures show it was able to bring in less than half that number. A total of 4,420 Syrians arrived between Nov. 4, when the Liberal cabinet was sworn in, and Dec. 28.

A further 4,985 refugees had been approved for permanent residency, awaiting transportation to Canada. The government has lumped those two totals together on its frequently updated “Welcome Refugees” website: 9,405 Syrians from refugee camps in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, arrived or arriving soon. Many arrivals are privately sponsored, some are government-sponsored.

That’s a far cry from the Liberals’ campaign pledge to resettle 25,000 government-sponsored refugees “immediately.” And it’s still quite a way from the 10,000 privately and government-sponsored refugees Immigration Minister John McCallum hoped to get here after he admitted the campaign promise was unattainable.

Does that matter? “I believe that the government keeping the promise as a priority in their agenda is the main issue that Canadians need to be concerned about,” said Abdulrahman Al-Masri, a refugee from Damascus and freelance journalist who arrived in Canada in 2014.

“Still, speaking about it, addressing the topic, never really forgetting about it from government officials, ministers, and Justin Trudeau himself, it’s a good sign that they did not forget about it, they’re working on it.”

Al-Masri’s comments echo many in the refugee advocacy community who have given and continue to give the new Liberal government plenty of room to back away from their overly ambitious timeline. The important thing, they say, is that the issue is a priority, and that large numbers of Syrians fleeing their country’s interminable civil war will arrive in the early months of 2016.

Which makes it all the more baffling as to why the Liberals stubbornly clung to their numbers and deadlines, even as it became clear to anyone following the issue the targets were unlikely to be met.

The Star requested an interview with McCallum on Tuesday, and comment from the Liberals on Wednesday. Those interview requests were declined, with the government scheduling a briefing for Thursday in Ottawa.

McCallum admitted to reporters last week that the 10,000 figure was going to be difficult to reach, despite Canada’s public servants “moving heaven and earth” to accomplish the goal their political masters set in front of them. And let there be no doubt — they have been working extremely hard, seven days a week, with hundreds sacrificing their holidays to help abroad, and senior officials briefing the media every week on progress and challenges.

But Conservative critic Michelle Rempel said the Liberals should be held to account for breaking their promise, not least because the Syrian refugee crisis became a central issue during the federal campaign.

“It does matter, because they engaged in a game of one-upmanship,” Rempel said Wednesday. “This is what was their sort-of wedge in the campaign against other parties . . . And they failed.”

Rempel noted that many of the refugees arriving since the Liberals took power — the majority privately sponsored — would have been working through the system under the previous Conservative administration. It’s not clear exactly how many more Syrians will ring in the new year in Canada thanks to the Liberals’ policy push, versus the number of privately sponsored who would have arrived had the Conservatives won re-election. So does it matter? Probably if you want to take the Liberals at their word when it comes to the promise-heavy platform that got them their majority government. Nobody forced the party to commit to those exact numbers and dates, after all.

But it probably doesn’t matter so much if, say, you believe the government should swing for the fences and see how far they actually get. Nobody would deny the Liberals put together an ambitious platform — not only on the refugee file, but for 195 other promises made during the campaign, according to TrudeauMetre.ca. Now we’ll just have to see how far they actually get.

“This is what was their sort-of wedge in the campaign against other parties . . . And they failed.” MICHELLE REMPEL CONSERVATIVE MP