Resettlement Program and Senate Committee

refugee camps: The question of why came up Wednesday at a Senate committee studying the refugee resettlement program and McCallum initially pinpointed two reasons: the fact refugees do not have high levels of income upon arrival and something else. "There may be a cultural element," he said. "You have to remember the refugees are coming from an entirely different world. "Our world is very different than their world, according to The Waterloo Record. Sometimes they have been living in refugee camps; maybe it the norm to be offered meals. Food banks from Halifax to B.C. have reported serving hundreds of Syrians who have come to Canada since November, the month the Liberal government launched a major resettlement program to bring 25,000 people by the end of February and thousands more by the end of this year. I'm not overly concerned about this." But later Wednesday McCallum met with reporters outside the House of Commons to take back those remarks. "The remark I made about food banks I think was insensitive so I regret having made that comment," he said. About 15,000 are government-assisted, meaning they receive a year of income support from the federal government linked to the size of the family and provincial social assistance rates. To date, about 27,000 Syrian refugees have arrived in Canada, spread among nearly 300 communities. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.