OTTAWA — In November, the Liberal government promised to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees by year end.
As of Dec. 21, 1,869 had arrived, but Immigration Minister John McCallum said Wednesday the year-end target has not changed.
When pushed to explain how it could be met, McCallum did not provide specifics. "If you do the math, it does add up," he said.
Here is a look at the figures:
1,869: Number of refugees who arrived in Canada between Nov. 4 and Dec. 21
298: Number expected to arrive Wednesday night in Montreal
7,833: Number required to arrive to meet year-end goal
979: Number of people per day that would need to arrive to meet that goal.
0: Number of flights arriving Thursday or Friday of this week.
4: Number of flights currently listed as scheduled to arrive between Saturday and Dec. 31.
242: People scheduled on one of those flights. (The government has not released passenger figures for the remaining three scheduled flights.)
1,305: number of people needed to arrive per day after Friday to meet the goal.
1,500: maximum number of Syrian refugees that McCallum said can arrive, per day, at the Toronto and Montreal airports combined.
5: maximum number of flights per day those two airports can accommodate.
SOURCE: Immigration Minister John McCallum, Immigration Department.
