Cabinet Ministers and Prime Minister Stephen Harper

: But pleas had fallen on deaf ears inside then prime minister Stephen Harper office, including pitches from cabinet ministers about how the government could and should do more than the 1,300 people it had already committed to bringing over, according to Toronto Star. Harper would only agree with a condition: the focus had to be on persecuted religious minorities from the country. The Conservatives were under pressure to address the ongoing refugee crisis created by the Syrian civil war — millions of people were on the move and refugee settlements were bursting at the seams. Given it was that or nothing, cabinet signed off, and on Jan. 7, a plan was announced — 10,000 people would be brought to Canada by 2018, most by private sponsors. He was skeptical — given the Conservatives’ track record — that they’d meet the deadline. Then serving as immigration critic for his party, McCallum chided the government for relying on private sponsors, saying it needed to lift more of the load. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.