Minister Alexander suddenly finds answers on Syrian refugees

Now that the House is on break and he is no longer facing daily questions about the management of his files, Minister Chris Alexander has suddenly discovered that he does know how many Syrian refugees are in Canada.

Perhaps the reason the Minister hung up on a phone interview and refused to give a straight answer to a simple question in the House of Commons is because the government’s record is so poor. Of the 1,300 Syrian refugees the Conservatives promised to take in a year ago, only 285 are actually in Canada.

Alexander’s performance on refugees is just another example of his failure of leadership at Citizenship and Immigration. His recent poor record includes:

• A court challenge of his citizenship bill filed less than a week after the bill received royal assent, after the Minister viciously attacked multiple legal experts who said that his bill was unconstitutional.
• Being forced to apologize after smearing an innocent immigration consultant.
• Denouncing provinces who stepped in to provide refugee health care after his Department savaged the Interim Federal Health Program as “reckless” and “irresponsible.” This is contrast to the Federal Court that found that the Conservatives’policy “shocks the conscience and outrages our standards of decency.”

Canadians deserve better.