Syrian Refugee Committee is ready for the families

To the Editor:
Our Canadian government announced that they would bring 25,000 Syrian refugees into Canada. Some would be government sponsored and some would be sponsored privately. A small group of people got together and formed the Weyburn Syrian Refugee Committee.
We started with a core committee but expanded to a larger group of 25 people. Our committee includes church leaders, business people, community organizations, health care leaders, education leaders and others. Our government called for community groups to sponsor some of the incoming refugees, and this is what we did.
We agreed to accept three families and a single man, and we have the names of those who are to come to Weyburn.
We are ready and waiting. Through donations and a spaghetti dinner we raised over $100,000. Housing is arranged and we are paying rent for two empty condos. The rooms are furnished and household items are in place. There is food in the cupboards, some of it the foods most eaten by Syrian people. We have people ready to help with clothing needs, translation, language learning, getting health documents and people willing to help with whatever the needs are.  We are ready and waiting.
Our government made a massive effort and brought in 25,000 Syrian refugees, in about 100 days, and then the flow of refugees came to nearly a full stop. When there was an outcry from groups like us, John McCallum, Minister of Immigration, went on TV, and told us that the government would expedite the process for groups like ours. Now, we are told, that our families might come sometime this year, or perhaps next. This doesn’t seem like an expedited process.
I have some questions. How long will we have to wait? How many other community groups across the country are ready and waiting? And lastly, what can we do to encourage our government to send us these refugee families?
One of our committee members said, “I sit in my nice house and every night I wonder how our Syrian families are doing?”
It doesn’t seem right to me that, we are ready and waiting, to welcome into a community at peace, Syrian refugees who only want a hope of a life where they don’t have to live in constant fear of events horrible beyond imagination, and nothing happens.
 We are ready and waiting. Will our families be sent to us?
Rev. Doug Loden,
for the Weyburn Syrian
Refugee Committee