Canada is yet to welcome the majority of 25,000 Syrian refugees it promised to resettle by the end of this year, but Immigration Minister John McCallum is already hinting the federal government could bring twice as many by the end of 2016.
“The number of refugees is likely to be in the order of 35,000 to 50,000,” McCallum said Wednesday. “That’s not yet in the official plan, but based on the discussions we’ve been having, it’s likely to be in that order.”
Canadian officials dispatched to Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon to select the Syrian refugees for resettlement in Canada have already issued 1,015 permanent resident visas.
A total of 271 Syrian refugees have already arrived in Canada since Nov. 4, said officials in Ottawa on Wednesday.
The absolute majority are privately sponsored refugees.
Thousands more are expected to start arriving as early as Dec. 10. Most of the refugees are expected to arrive in Montreal and Toronto before being resettled in dozens of communities across Canada.
Toronto’s Pearson International airport is preparing a rarely used terminal to process the new arrivals.
A total of 9,090 refugee resettlements applications are currently in progress, officials said. About 36 per cent of applicants are under the age of 18.
By the end of November, officials from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees had contacted 41,050 refugees refugees in Jordan and Lebanon by text message and 28,560 by phone.
UNHCR officials ended up interviewing 3,049 potential candidates for resettlement in Canada. They referred 1,801 refugees to Canadian officials for further interviews.
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