自由党的难民计划又遇到一障碍。移民和难民事务部长约翰·麦考伦周三上午透露，四个城市现在要求了暂停叙利亚难民向他们的城市的涌入。多伦多，渥太华，温哥华和哈利法克斯就是无法处理这样数量的难民。
这不是因为他们不希望难民到他们那里。如果有希望的话，应该是于此相反的。他们希望尽可能地为他们提供服务。这只是他们到来步伐加得过快，资源都被消耗尽了。所以他们实际上要求联邦政府给与一个重新组织的喘息时间。
The Liberals' refugee plans have hit yet another snag. Immigration and Refugee Minister John McCallum revealed Wednesday morning that four cities are now asking for a pause to the flow of Syrian refugees arriving in their municipalities. Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver and Halifax just can't handle the numbers.
It's not because they don't want them there. If anything, it's the opposite. They want to serve them as well as possible. It's just the accelerated pace at which they're arriving has strained resources. So they've basically asked the feds for a break to regroup.
The government won't slow down the number of government-sponsored refugees arriving via airplane, but will change where exactly they're immediately being housed. "There are many, many places in Canada that are crying out for refugees," McCallum told reporters Wednesday morning.
It appears much of the volume of arrivals will be redirected to communities in Quebec, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan. The government remains confident it is on track to hit its target of welcoming 25,000 Syrian refugees by March 1.
However this latest hiccup is a reminder that the original Liberal plan - to bring in 25,000 Syrians by Dec. 31 - was far too ambitious in terms of logistics. Even the current numbers clearly pose a challenge for service providers. Hopefully the Liberals will learn from this experience when developing other ambitious plans throughout the course of their majority mandate.
McCallum also addressed concerns Canadians rightfully have over whether incidents like the mass sexual assaults by migrants in Germany could happen here. The minister downplayed the possibility, pointing out that Canada is actively selecting who we want coming here, whereas Germany is dealing with a flow of people across its border that it has little control over.
Canadians have also started asking questions about whether Syrian refugees will receive "front-of-the-line" service ahead of Canadians who have been on waiting lists.
"We don't want to put the refugees at the front of a queue where other Canadians have been lining up," McCallum explained. "We don't want to give them instant citizenship when others have been waiting. They will have to join the queue like everybody else."
While this is the right thing to say, it'll be tough to live up to. The optics are such that simply by flying them in and giving them immediate access to interim housing the government appears to have let them jump the queue. Clearly, the logistics challenge continues.
