Syrians and Immigration Department

Syrian refugees: In November, the Liberals said 10,000 Syrians, mostly privately sponsored, would arrive by the end of 2015, but failed to meet that target, according to Hamilton Spectator. They say 25,000 Syrians in total should be here by the end of February and then a further 10,000 government-assisted Syrian refugees will come by the end of 2016. Flight arrival data on the Immigration Department website suggests the 10,000th Syrian will arrive on one of two flights bound for Toronto on Tuesday though the department could not confirm that number. "We expect to achieve our goal of welcoming 10,000 Syrian refugees to Canada this week," said spokesman Remi Lariviere in an e-mail, but he added that information online is still subject to change. What unclear is how many more privately sponsored refugees will be accepted after the end of February. But nobody knows how those applications will be treated without knowing the government overall immigration plan for 2016, he said. There are upwards of two hundred applications a week being submitted by private groups looking to sponsor Syrians, said Chris Friesen, the president of the Canadian Immigration Settlement Sector Alliance. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.