Update December 17th: I love it! Leftists are screaming bloody murder over Canada’s conservative government’s possible choice of Christian and other minority Syrians OVER Muslim refugees for resettlement, more here.
Last week when Asst. Secretary of State Anne Richard went to Geneva and promised the UNHCR that the US would take 9,000 mostly Muslim Syrians, the Canadian government made no such promise. Instead word leaked out that they might speed up their resettlement, but for only Christians and other persecuted minorities.
Squawking refugee advocates apparently want 10,000 or more (mostly Muslim) Syrians for Canada over the next two years instead.
From CBC News:
The federal government is seeking to resettle more Syrian refugees, but only from the country’s religious minorities, according to sources close to discussions around Canada’s position on refugees from the war-torn nation.
Canada has been struggling to meet an earlier commitment from July 2013 to resettle 1,300 Syrians by the end of this year.
[….]
On Tuesday, the government updated that number to 703. Kevin Menard, a spokesman for the immigration minister, wrote CBC News on Friday saying the numbers are “going up fairly quickly.”
Refugee advocacy organizations in Canada have been asking the government to take in 10,000 more Syrians over the next two years, and the UN says it is in dire need of assistance as the civil war intensifies.
This suggestion, to take only religious minorities (code for non-Muslims), sure does smoke out the UNHCR and its apparent goal to move as many Muslims to the West as they can. If the UNHCR was really concerned for the well being of persecuted people, its response would have been: we are thrilled that Canada is giving a home to deserving people. Instead we hear this gobbledegook:
Sources close to the discussions say Canada is seeking to resettle only refugees from Syria’s religious minorities, something that would likely be difficult for the UN’s refugee agency to accept.
The UNHCR’s policy on refugees says a resettlement state determines the “size and composition” of who and how many refugees it accepts, and “therefore has full control with respect to decisions on individual cases.” [LOL! I guess Canada doesn’t have full control over who it picks if it isn’t who the UN says it should be!—ed]
“Nevertheless, UNHCR urges all states to be guided by the agency’s internationally recognized criteria on eligibility, global needs and priorities,” the policy says.
“To preserve the integrity of resettlement as a protection tool and durable solution for refugees most in need, it is important to ensure resettlement programmes are needs‐based, non‐discriminatory and achieve successful integration outcomes.” [And, so favoring the Muslims over the religious minorities isn’t discriminatory?—ed]
Keep this in mind (from Pew Research in 2011):
Canada’s Muslim population is expected to nearly triple, climbing from 940,000 in 2010 to 2.7 million in 2030.