Flor Marcelino and Tory Myrna Driedger

visa offices: Staffing boost underway for privately sponsored Syrian refugees amid complaints Syrian refugee sponsors in Collingwood, Ont., receive good news, but frustration remains "Over 40 additional dedicated staff are joining employees already working in visa offices in the Middle East to process these applications in May and June," said Lisa Filipps, an immigration spokeswoman, in response to a query from CBC News. "Employees are located in different countries, with the bulk of the processing occurring in Beirut, according to CBC. These efforts are supported by dozens of staff in Canada," Filipps said in an email. The update comes after Immigration Minister John McCallum told a Commons committee last Thursday that a staffing boost was underway, though no details were immediately available. Last week, the Immigration Department told CBC that "more than 65 full-time employees" are working in visa offices in Amman, Ankara and Beirut. Priority for 'cases in the pipeline' Sewell said he did receive some "positive news" from Adam Vaughan, the Liberal MP for Spadina -Fort York, who called him over the weekend to say the Immigration Department "will try to prioritize" those refugees who have been matched with Canadian sponsors but have yet to arrive in Canada. "Vaughan said the department is going to give priority to some of those cases in the pipeline." "That good news," Sewell said. John Sewell, the former Toronto mayor who has become a spokesman for private sponsors in Ontario and is now in the process of forming a national group, says it a step in the right direction, but it not enough to process thousands of applications. "It a start," said Sewell in a phone interview Monday. "It better than nothing, but I don't think it responds to the actual need." Approximately 500 government officials worked on the Liberal government initiative to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees between last November and the end of February. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.