The first Canadian government plane carrying Syrian refugees arrived in Toronto late on Thursday, where the new arrivals were greeted by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is pushing forward with a pledge to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of February.
The welcome given to the military flight carrying 163 refugees stands in stark contrast with the US, which plans to take in just 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year, a plan that is provoking opposition.
The flight from Jordan arrived just before midnight carrying the first of two large groups of Syrian refugees to arrive in the nation by government aircraft.
Photo: Reuters
Trudeau greeted some of the families to come through processing. The first family was that of Kevork Jamkossian, a gynecologist from Aleppo, his wife, Georgina Zires, a lab technician, and their 16-month-old daughter, Madeleine.
“We really would like to thank you for all this hospitality and the warm welcome,” the father said to Trudeau through an interpreter. “We felt ourselves at home.”
“You are home. Welcome home,” Trudeau said.
“We suffered a lot. Now, we feel as if we got out of hell and we came to paradise,” Jamkossian said later.
Families were given teddy bears and winter clothing.
Trudeau earlier thanked staff and volunteers who were processing the refugees.
“This is a wonderful night, where we get to show not just a planeload of new Canadians what Canada is all about, we get to show the world how to open our hearts and welcome in people who are fleeing extraordinarily difficult situations,” Trudeau said.
All 10 of Canada’s provincial premiers support taking in the refugees and members of the opposition, including the Conservative party, attended the welcoming late on Thursday.
Greg Keoushkerian, 26, waited at the airport for his best friend, whom he sponsored.
Keoushkerian, a Syrian refugee of Armenian descent, said he and his family have been in Canada for 10 months and did not bother applying for asylum in the US.
“Canada has been so welcoming. The US doesn’t seem like that. People here respect each other here. It’s so multicultural,” he said.
“All my friends are asking about Canada now and how they can come here,” he said.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary