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April 10th, 2014

Canada must honour commitment to help Syrian refugees

With the situation in Syria worsening daily, the NDP is calling for the Conservative government to honour its promise to accept more Syrian refugees, and respond generously to the UN’s recent appeals.

“Canadians expect leadership from our country. It’s time for the Conservatives to show some compassion and take real action to help the thousands of Syrian refugees still living in awful conditions,” said NDP Citizenship and Immigration critic NDP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe (Pierrefonds – Dollard).

The NDP is urging the Conservatives to increase government-sponsored refugee numbers and accelerate Syrian refugee application processing, as was done in 1999 for Kosovar refugee applications. Canada has still not responded to the UN’s February call for the international community to accept 100,000 additional Syrian refugees in 2015 and 2016.

“The scale of this crisis is shocking. Canada needs to do more to help ensure that humanitarian agencies are able to reach the millions of Syrians who need urgent relief,” said NDP Foreign Affairs critic Paul Dewar (Ottawa Centre).