Immigration Minister John McCallum unclear on details for Syrian refugee arrivals

The federal immigration minister still cannot outline the exact flight plans for government-sponsored refugees and now he only has a month leftto get 10,000 Syrians to Canada by year's end.

John McCallum, along with the health and defence ministers, travelled toAmman, Jordanon the weekendto visit the biggest refugee camp in the region and see Canada's processing centre.

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Canada will lease planes from Royal Jordanian Airlinesto transport Syrian refugees to Canada.

But McCallum could not describe the flight schedules in detail.

"We want the first airplane to come and then be followed quite quickly by other airplanes. So we want to have a certain number built up before we begin the process," McCallum told reporters in a conference call last night.

He added it's possible the first plane could arrive within a week, but he wasn't sure of an exact date.

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McCallum saidthe Jordanian government has been very supportive of Canada's efforts to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to the country by next February.

And he said the airline is also being co-operative.

"Those airplanes will be available to us as and when they're needed, in the number we require. So it's a very flexible arrangement,which is very advantageous for Canada," McCallum said.

Number of permanent visas issued unclear

McCallumalsocouldnot provide an update on the number of permanent resident visas issued so far, beyond the previous number of 928 that he told reporters last week.He said the media will receive a briefing soon, when those details are known.

It is now just a month before the date by which the federal government hadpromised to identify 25,000 refugees, with 10,000 of them to arrivein CanadabyDec.31, 2015.Of that number, only 2,000 will be government-sponsored refugees.

The Liberal government had initially promised during the election campaign to have all of those refugees in Canada by the end ofthe year, but it has since decided to slow down the process.

When asked whether he believed his government could even hit the new, longer deadline, McCallum said he believes it can.

"It remains our firm objective and are working very hard to make it happen," McCallum said.