Election Campaign and Security Screening

election campaign: He said the Conservatives' announcement Saturday that they would cancel the requirement refugees first be designated as such by the United Nations before applying for asylum in Canada as "a sudden and convenient change of heart during an election campaign." Immigration Minister Chris Alexander said that while security screening will remain the government priority, his government will issue thousands more visas by the end of the year to people fleeing the sectarian conflict and civil war in Syria, according to CTV. Trudeau dismissed suggestions his plan would compromise Canadians' security as many of those seeking refuge in Europe and North America are coming from a territory controlled or affected by the violence of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, whose leaders openly call for terrorist attacks on Canadian soil. "No one is suggesting we should put aside security in order to ," he told the crowd. Hundreds of boisterous supporters came to hear him speak at Halifax Pier 21, the former immigration depot that welcomed over one million immigrants and refugees between 1928 and 1971. "For me, it always a humbling and an incredibly deep privilege to be able to stand here at Pier 21," he said on a stage overlooking the Halifax port. "It a place that touches me deeply." Trudeau defended his promise to welcome 25,000 refugees from Syria by year end -- more than the Conservatives or the NDP have promised to do -- by saying all that standing in the way is political will. People fleeing Syria can be properly assessed by employing more case workers, increasing screening capacity and "looking at the possibility of airlifts," Trudeau said. Roughly 200,000 refugees from the Second World War -- many of them Holocaust survivors -- travelled to Canada between 1946 and 1952, often through the doors of Pier 21, which has since been turned into an immigration museum. The choice to talk about refugees at Pier 21 is fitting, considering the role it played for decades in welcoming the tired and needy from across the world. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.