After reading the following, I feel very angry and frustred. I am forced to use in appropriate language here.. A******e John McCallum... and M*****F****r Canadian Politicians.. It is annoying to see they are only worried about refugees and not taking any steps, providing any option or action plan to reduce backlog of Spousal Application.. These A******e only care about our votes in election..
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/visa-syrian-refugees-jordan-lebanon-1.3525676
Additional staff are being sent back to Canadian visa offices in the Middle East for faster processing of Syrian refugees, part of a Liberal promise to bring 10,000 privately sponsored Syrians to Canada by early next year.
Sponsorship groups have given Immigration Minister John McCallum and other Liberal MPs an earful in recent weeks after efforts to resettle Syrians were scaled back following the end of the government's program to get 25,000 to Canada by the end of February.
Staffing cuts and limits on applications meant people who had raised money, rented apartments and amassed clothes, furniture and volunteers would likely not meet their refugees until well into next year.
The commitment to extra staff proves the government is serious about meeting the commitment, said McCallum, adding that he will reveal more details next week about how the government plans to accelerate the process.
"Given that we're at capacity, there's a limit to how much we can do, even though I would really like it if we could accommodate fully all the generosity coming from Canadian families," he said in an interview.
Among those still frustrated is former Toronto mayor John Sewell, who met Thursday with McCallum and has become a spokesperson for several private sponsorship groups in that city.
Sewell said his group wants any Syrians already matched with Canadian groups brought here by the end of the month.
In a separate email to CBC News Thursday, Sewell said McCallum seemed to agree with the idea of prioritizing refugee families that have already been matched with private sponsor groups in Canada.
McCallum said he didn't agree to a specific timeline, but it makes sense to first speed up the applications that nearly complete and address the people whose files have been approved but who've yet to travel to Canada.
According to the Immigration Department's website, there are 2,697 Syrians whose files have been approved but they have not yet travelled to Canada, though McCallum said there were 1,500 just waiting for flights.
At the high point of the Liberal program to resettle 25,000 people, there were more than 500 staff in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey interviewing, screening and signing off on hundreds of applicants a day. Government-organized flights were also arriving daily in Toronto and Montreal with hundreds of refugees on board.
In the last week, about 200 applications were approved and six Syrian refugees landed in Canada, according to the department's website.
(http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/refugees/welcome/milestones/data.asp)
