Refugees are a source of economic growth, not a drain on Canada’s resources, said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Thursday.
“I think one of the things that is most important right now is for a country like Canada to demonstrate how to make accepting large numbers of refugees not just a challenge or a problem but an opportunity,” Trudeau told reporters at a press conference at the National Press Gallery in Ottawa, “an opportunity for communities across this country, an opportunity to create growth for the economy.”
ListenCanada has always been able to do successfully integrate large waves of refugees, Trudeau said.
“It’s a way of not just helping people in dire need of being helped but also contributing to economic growth in our home countries by bringing families and individuals willing to work and build and contribute fully as members of our society,” he said.
Trudeau met with his cabinet on Thursday where one of the top priorities was to discuss a plan to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees before the end of the year.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister John McCallum said the cabinet had a “very good discussion” and promised to release more details in the “near future.”
“We, as a country, are going forward to provide quick and substantial help to some of the most distressed people on the planet,” said McCallum after the cabinet meeting.
“We won’t have further details for some days until we announce in great detail the whole plan of what we are going to do.”
The government has created an ad hoc committee, comprising of nine cabinet ministers to facilitate the task. This ad hoc committee will be chaired by Health Minister Jane Philpott and vice-chaired by Heritage Minister Melanie Joly.
Making a difference
Mitchell Goldberg, president of Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, said the government is facing an enormous task.
Hundreds of government officials have already been sent to Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, Syria’s three neighbours who’ve taken the bulk of over 4 million refugees who have fled the civil war in their home country. These officials have the difficult task of selecting and vetting the refugees for resettlement in Canada, Goldberg said.
The government also has to figure out how to bring these refugees to Canada and where to house them once they arrive.
“After years of inaction we’re finally seeing a government taking human life seriously and responding to the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War, and making a difference,” Goldberg said.
The question of the Syrian refugees will also top Trudeau’s agenda at the upcoming meeting of G-20 leaders in Turkey. The leaders of the world’s 20 major economies, including the United States, China, Japan, Russia, Canada, Australia and Brazil, are to meet on Sunday and Monday in the Mediterranean resort of Antalya primarily to discuss global economic issues.
But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country is now home to over two million Syrian refugees, wants the world to also discuss the situation in Syria and Iraq.
It will be Trudeau’s first appearance on the international scene.
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