“We’ve had Toronto families come forward en masse to support and settle Syrian refugees and it’s taking an unacceptable amount of time for refugees to be processed and brought to Canada,” Cressy said. Although he filed his motion before Donald Trump’s executive order for “extreme vetting” of would-be immigrants from seven countries, including Syria, Cressy said Toronto and Canada must react quickly. In December, the grassroots group Canada4Refugees said after 13,500 refugees had sponsorship applications submitted on their behalf before the end of March, fewer than a third of those people had arrived in Canada. According to the federal government’s immigration website, nearly 40,000 Syrian refugees had been resettled as of Jan. 2, nearly 14,000 through private sponsorship. Of those, 5,925 refugees arrived in Toronto, 3,234 from private sponsorship.

Source: thestar January 30, 2017 17:37 UTC