Minister John McCallum

military housing: Cost savings were achieved because transportation was cheaper than expected, temporary military housing was never used and neither was a contingency fund, Immigration Minister John McCallum told a House of Commons committee, according to Huffington Post Canada. Immigration Minister John McCallum helps Syrian refugee Ramez with his glove at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on Monday, February 29, 2016. "The reason we spent dramatically less than we said we would is because we were dramatically efficient," he said. Bringing in 25,000 people between November and the end of February cost $319 million, with the biggest costs being transporting and welcoming people to Canada, according to figures released by the Immigration Department. The original budget for the program was $678 million spread over six years. The maximum budget for those three streams was $188 million and figures released Thursday estimate $108.5 million has been spent so far. "The reason we spent dramatically less than we said we would is because we were dramatically efficient." But the lion share of the program budget — the cost to actually settle the refugees and provide income support, language training, job services and the like — remains to be spent. It was divided up into five phases — the first three focused on the identification, processing and transportation of refugees. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.