Canada Vows to Resettle 13,000 More Syria, Iraq Refugees

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, has commended Canada on its decision to increase the number of refugees it accepts while asking other wealthy nations to follow its lead. An announcement made on Wednesday confirmed that Canada’s government plans to take in almost 13,000 more refugees from Syria and Iraq even though private organizations might be expected to foot more than half the bill.

The announcement from Canadian immigration minister, Chris Alexander, alleged that the plan to take in 10,000 refugees from Syria and 3,000 from Iraq is about “doing the right thing.” However, several sources have pointed out that the number of refugees that will actually be resettled is far from certain since organizations like churches and private charities will be expected to fund the resettlement of 60 percent of the refugees. Head of the Canadian Council for Refugees, Janet Dench, alleged that the community groups are being relied upon too much to foot the bill of resettling refugees. She alleged that “there are some serious reservations about capacity,” and “a majority should be government sponsored and a minority of the refugees coming should be private sponsorship.”

Although Canada’s government has refrained from revealing the exact funding breakdown, the UNHCR has openly welcomed the preliminary commitment as “substantial” and “generous.” The agency stressed that more countries need to come forward and boost their refugee intakes as global numbers of displaced persons mushroom. Head of the refugee agency, Antonio Guterres, stated that “in 2014, we have seen the number of people under our care grow to unprecedented levels.”