Deciding to Come to Canada

Watch Dawn Edlund, former Associate Assistant Deputy Minister of Operations, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, and Government of Canada Operational Lead for Operation Syrian Refugees, discuss refugee resettlement.

Deciding to Come to Canada

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Transcript: Deciding to Come to Canada

Video length: 1:59

Light music plays.

An image fades in of refugees going through a gap in a fence. A young boy can be seen scared and crying.

Text appears: Operation Syrian Refugees – Phase 1

The image fades to black and turns into a blurred background.

Text appears: Deciding to come to Canada

Screen fades to black and music stops.

Transition to a woman speaking to the camera, with flags in the background.

Text appears: Dawn Edlund, Former Associate Assistant Deputy Minister of Operations, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and Government of Canada Operational Lead for Operation Syrian Refugees

dawn edlund: Most people who have been forced to leave their homes, you know, they … first they run around inside the country itself – so within Syria, people would try to find places of safety – and that’s typical of any forced migration movement. And then they go to neighbouring countries close by, so that they actually have an opportunity to go home again once things are fixed.

An image fades to a border crossing into Turkey with many people walking and carrying large bags. The image then cuts to a family walking down a busy street. The father is holding a baby.

dawn edlund: And it’s very rare that people actually make the choice to go to a resettlement country and to not know anything about that country, frankly, before they … before they go.

The image cuts back to Dawn Edlund speaking.

An image fades to the same border crossing into Turkey. The image then cuts to a close-up shot where we see many people walking and carrying large bags.

dawn edlund: The ops started on November 4, but the first flight left Lebanon on December 10 … so between December 10 and February 29, there were 99 flights that came in … and it was quite a complicated business because … the International Organization for Migration actually organized most of this for us, so they would go to the places where the refugees were residing, sometimes they’re in places like Lebanon for example, it’s informal camp situations, but most of the Syrian refugees, whether in … in Turkey or Beirut, or Lebanon or Jordan, were living in mostly urban environments, and so the IOM would organize busing people from where they were living to the actual, sometimes they went … to a hotel to stay overnight and then they would bus them very early the next morning to the airport to get them, you know, organized for their flights, then there was all the stuff about getting them checked in and getting the luggage organized and people were only allowed to bring 2 pieces of luggage, so that’s quite a lot, in terms of trying to fit your whole life into 2 pieces of luggage.

The screen fades to black.

The Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada corporate signature along with the copyright message “Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, represented by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 2020.” are shown on screen followed by the “Canada” wordmark.

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