Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s
fairytale story of Syrian refugees is once again clashing with reality.
His government first had to admit
that its election campaign promise to admit 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end
of 2015 was wildly unachievable. It turns out that resettling tens of thousands
of refugees from the other side of the world takes more than just a few weeks.
Of course, this was plain to see all
along, especially considering Syrian refugees who are plucked from a war zone
and a hotbed for radical Islamic terrorism. It made no sense to slap an
artificial timeline and rush this process.
But rather than changing course
altogether, the Trudeau government simply doubled down and gave itself a
two-month extension. Their new promise is to accept 25,000 refugees by February
29, 2016, and another 25,000 by December 31, 2016.
And so the problems continue.
This week, resettlement service
providers in major cities across the country asked the government for a pause
in accepting new refugees.
This is the polite way of saying the
Trudeau plan is still not working.
The groups who work directly with
newly arriving refuges – the people tasked with ensuring these refugees are
housed, fed, and enrolled in language and integration courses – are completely
overwhelmed. They are throwing up their hands and asking the government to slow
down.
Therefore, while Trudeau was in
Davos this week, delivering a braggadocio speech about Canada’s generosity
vis-à-vis refugees, the professionals on the ground were left scrambling.
These service providers are at the mercy
of the federal government and have been given an impossible task. Not only do
they have to navigate the bureaucracy to receive funding that is limited and
conditional, they have also been asked to expedite the process and triple their
capacity.
No wonder they want a delay in
accepting refugees.
Meanwhile, there is a parallel
private sponsorship refugee program that is under-utilized and offering to do
more.
