NDP, Liberals demand Ottawa speed up inflow of Syrian refugees

Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, who have been under fierce pressure to address the refugee crisis, sent out International Development minister Christian Paradis to announce Ottawa will match up to $100 million in charitable donations for Syria.

The relief fund will provide assistance through international and Canadian organizations in the Iraq-Syria region, meeting the needs of shelter, food, health and water, as well as protection and emergency education, for conflict-affected people, the government said Saturday.

“The Syrian conflict is a tragedy of huge magnitude,” Paradis said.

“None of us can stand idle when we know the horrors that affect so many civilians caught in the Syrian conflict. The question that we’ve been hearing, loud and clear, from Canadians is: ‘What can I do to help?’ ”

But the NDP said that while humanitarian assistance is important, Harper and the Conservatives need to do a lot more.

“We welcome the Conservatives’ decision to finally listen to Canadians who have been calling for government action to help Syrian refugees and set up a donation-matching fund as we requested last week,” Paul Dewar, the NDP candidate in Ottawa-Centre, said.

“Of course, we must not stop there. We need to take immediate steps to speed up the arrival of refugees here in Canada,” he said.

Adam Vaughan, the Liberal candidate for Spadina-Fort York, reacted to the announcement for his party by stressing the government must go beyond increasing financial aid.

“Canadians are coming together. Politicians should come together. That’s what Canadians expect of us,” Vaughan said.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has called on Harper to set aside partisan political considerations and work with other parties to expedite the arrival of Syrian asylum seekers.

At a news conference, Paradis declined to say if the federal government would co-operate with Ontario to help fulfil Premier Kathleen Wynne’s plan to bring an additional 10,000 Syrian refugees to the province.

He said Ottawa intends “to do more” to address the refugee crisis but did not say if the federal government would take steps to facilitate the inflow of Syrian refugees envisioned by Wynne.

“It’s still a work in progress,” said Paradis, who is not running for re-election.

Under current arrangements, Ontario would need the federal government to expedite the process for the plan, which would cost Ontario $10.5 million, to proceed.

Announcing the plan in Toronto on Saturday, Wynne said most of Ontario’s contribution will help “expedite the resettlement of refugees all across Ontario and support them as they build new lives here” over the next 2 ½ years.

Senior government officials said $8.5 million of the $10.5 million will be used to bring 10,000 Syrians to Ontario over the next two years. Wynne said $2 million of the amount will go to immediate humanitarian aid on the ground overseas.

“The funding we’ve committed today will help us work with individuals, with faith-based groups and with community organizations to reach our goal,” she said.

Wynne said that because the provincial government cannot sponsor refugees, she can’t do anything concrete to speed up the process of bringing refugees to Ontario, but she encouraged the federal government to move more quickly.

Wynne and her spouse, Jane Rounthwaite, have been trying to sponsor a Syrian family with a group from their church since January.

“We have not been able to move that forward,” Wynne said earlier this week. “The bottom line for me is that all of us across the country need to be doing everything we can to help in this humanitarian crisis.”

Wynne’s announcement Saturday followed a round-table discussion with new immigrants and leaders in the campaign to privately sponsor more refugees.

“Part of what we heard this morning was there is still a need for more support as more people come,” she said.

Lifeline Syria, an organization that helps private sponsors of Syrian refugees, hasn’t been able to keep up with the influx of support for their cause, said member Mario Calla. He said they haven’t been able to respond to all the phone calls from people interested in sponsoring families. The new money will allow the organization to recruit more people to field phone calls and provide support to sponsors.

“The challenge for some (potential sponsors) is they realize they’re responsible for up to a year for the refugees,” said Calla. “What if someone makes a pledge of support and they lose their job, for example?”

Calla said the money will also offer assurance that even if private sponsors can no longer afford the financial commitment, refugees won’t be left penniless in Canada.

Civil war and the upsurge of ISIS terrorism have caused millions of people to flee Syria. World concern about the crisis was galvanized after a photo of drowned 3-year-old Alan Kurdi was widely published. When Kurdi’s father said the family had hoped to come to Canada, the Harper government was criticized for not doing enough to expedite the application and resettlement process for refugees.

“We are seeing right across the country — people are stepping up the way Canadians always step up when there is need. The only people who are not stepping up are the Harper Conservatives,” NDP candidate Charlie Angus said Saturday.

“This is an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Canada has international obligations and yet the Harper government continues to ignore, misrepresent or belittle the people who are trying to flee from this horror, so we welcome the role of the provinces in stepping up to the plate and we need a federal government to do that and they can do that now,” said Angus, who is running in the Ontario riding of Timmins-James Bay.

On Saturday, Paradis said Ottawa has already committed $503 million in humanitarian assistance in response to the crisis in Syria and neighbouring countries since the beginning of Syria’s civil war, and is putting more resources into the field in the Iraq-Syria region to speed up the processing of refugees.

He said that Canada has accepted 2,500 Syrian asylum seekers since 2013.

Last month Harper promised that a re-elected Conservative government would admit an additional 10,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees over the next four years.

Harper has said Canada cannot neglect security concerns when bringing in refugees from Iraq and Syria.

“We cannot open the floodgates and airlift tens of thousands of refugees out of a terrorist war zone without proper process,” he said recently. But he has also hinted that the Conservatives are looking at ways to expedite the flow of Syrian refugees into Canada.

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair has said an NDP government would bring in 10,000 asylum seekers from Syria by Jan. 1, 2016, and resettle another 9,000 government-sponsored refugees from the war-torn region annually for the next four years.

The Liberals say they would bring in 25,000 Syrians by Dec. 31 if they are elected.

Responding to the Conservatives’ announcement of increased Syrian aid, humanitarian aid, Harsha Walia of No One Is Illegal in Vancouver said, “This emergency relief fund is a Band-Aid solution. This government needs to completely overhaul our exclusionary refugee system so that all refugees can arrive and remain in safety. The federal government also needs to implement emergency measures, as it has done in the past, to immediately reunite family members from Syria and welcome Syrian refugees.”