Canada's Syrian refugee plan limited to women, children and families

The federal government's much-anticipatedSyrian refugee plan will limit those acceptedinto Canada to women, children and families only, CBC News has learned.

Sources tell CBC News that to deal with some ongoing concerns around security,unaccompanied men seeking asylum will not be part of the program.

The details of the plan will be announced Tuesday, but already Canadian officials have been working on the ground to process people.

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In the last six weeks alone, Canadian authorities have managed to screen about 100 people a day in Lebanon to help the government reach its ambitioustarget of getting 25,000 Syrian refugees here by the end of the year.

These areon top of the refugees being processed by the United Nations Refugee Agency.

The government has so far been mum about both the kind of security screening it is doing and whether it will be limited to refugee camps overseas, or whether some ofit will take place in Canada.

But last week Public Safety MinisterRalph Goodale said the process will be on top of what the United Nations is already doing. Canada's screening is being co-ordinatedacrossdepartments, including the RCMP and CSIS.

Most heading for military bases

As many as 900 refugees a day are expected to arrive from Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. Thevast majority of them will arrive in Toronto and Montreal.

Sources say most of the newcomerswill initially be housed in military bases,which have been preparingfor their arrival. Other kinds of housing will also be used, including hotels and abandoned hospitals.

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But sources also say the government will stay away from calling any of these temporary housing locations"camps"perhaps to stay away from the notion that refugee camps are typically large-scale andtemporary,often using tents.

Refugees will not be housed in tents in Canada.

Moreover, once in Canada, officials broadly expectrefugees to be "mobile" in about a month's time: While thousands of people may arrive temporarily in one location, they may quickly disperse throughout Canada.

There had been some initial concerns about trying to "contain" refugees to any givenlocation for too long, given that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees mobility rights.Those rights applyto refugees once they arrive in Canada and could open the government up to potential legal problems, if applied.

Billion-dollar effort

The price tag of such an ambitious plan over a short timeline is going to be significant.

Sources confirm thedollar figuresreportedby The Canadian Press on Friday:$876.7 million for this first year alone. A large part of those initial costs comefromairlifting thousands of peopleby Dec. 31.

The total cost of the program is expected to be $1.2 billion over six years.

The crisis ofrefugees from Syria and northern Iraq is part of the agenda asPrime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with provincial and territorial premiers in Ottawa on Monday.

In aletter last week, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall called for the federal government to suspend its plans to fast-track so many new arrivals, citing concerns over rushing security checks.

Full details of the plan will beannounced by the federal government on Tuesday.