Minister Jason Kenney is wrapping up his three country tour of the world with a visit to Turkey where he welcomed 5,000 refugees from Syria on Tuesday.
Kenney, the minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, began his trip in Sri Lanka where he announced new funding for flood victims and denounced human smuggling practices all over the world.
The minister then travelled to India where he commented that in 2012 the city of Chandigarh received a record number of valid visitor visas to Canada, more than any year before.
He also commented on India’s opportunity to take example from Canada’s model of pluralism. Pluralism is a system of social construction where individual cultures are allowed to maintain a level of individuality in the context of a larger social base. Canada is one of the earliest adopters of this policy with its tolerant laws towards the Quebecois, British and First Nations people early in the country’s history.
Canada, India and Sri Lanka are all commonwealth countries, an international organization of sovereign nations that were formerly British colonies, though some member states remain colonies of Britain.
Minister Kenney’s third stop was to Turkey which is experiencing a large influx of refugees from conflicts in the region, termed the Arab Spring.
Syria, which has experienced intense revolutionary conflict over the past year, has a particularly large contribution of refugees to Turkey.
Though Minister Kenney said that it would be preferable to somehow negotiate the end of the civil war in Syria and send the refugees home, has announced that Canada will be accepting 5,000 refugees from Turkey into Canada by 2018.
Canada has also made significant donations to the Red Cross and the Red Crescent to help afflicted people in the region affected by the Syrian civil war.
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