Actually they didn’t say “to begin with,” that was me, because we all know that this is just the beginning with literally millions of Syrians on the move throughout the Middle East.
Washington Post photo
Be sure to read what the director of one of the largest Syrian camps said recently (here)—-most difficult refugees in the world!
Apparently the Canadian government has succumbed to pressure from its 100,000-strong Canadian ‘Syrian community.’
1,300 will soon be on the way, according to The Star:
Ottawa will resettle 1,300 Syrian refugees to Canada from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey over two years to address the deepening humanitarian crisis there, says Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.
The announcement on Wednesday came a month after the Syrian Canadian community made a public appeal urging the federal government to establish a special program for displaced refugees caught up in the two-year-old civil war between Syrian President Bashar Assad and the opposition.
The latest United Nations data shows more than 4.25 million Syrians are internally displaced and more than 1.6 million have fled to neighbouring countries.
“Our focus . . . is finding a long-term political solution to the crisis there,” Kenney told a news conference in Edmonton. “Our country is making an important effort to ensure the most vulnerable Syrian refugees are provided protection.” [They love that word too—vulnerable!-–ed]
A coalition representing Canada’s 100,000-strong Syrian community welcomed the announcement, but worry about the lengthy screening and processing involved in the resettlement program.
“It is a step in the right direction. They finally recognized the crisis in Syria, which is the largest refugee crisis in the world today,” said Faisal Alazem of the Syrian Canadian Council in Montreal, one of seven groups involved in the coalition that met with Kenney in June.
Then US readers take note, in Canada many refugees are resettled with PRIVATE FUNDING. In the US almost all refugees are resettled with taxpayer money funneled through resettlement contractors.
Two hundreds of the 1,300 Syrian refugees will be resettled with financial support by the Canadian government, while the rest will be assisted by community and faith groups that have sponsorship agreements with Ottawa.
If the US required private financial support and added legal responsibility for the resettlement sponsor group or individual sponsors, the refugee flow would be seriously curtailed. It’s just too easy to want more (and more) refugees when using someone else’s money!