OTTAWA — Thousands of Syrian refugees will learn they may have a chance at a new life in Canada from a beep on their mobile phone.
A simple text message from the United Nations asking if they'd be interested in the Liberal government's resettlement program will start a process of multiple interviews, security screens and health scans.
If all is in order, next is a check mark on their file indicating they've passed UN muster to be among the 25,000 Syrians set to arrive in Canada by the end of February.
But the fact that processing will now be handled entirely overseas and will take longer than expected, are two elements forcing agencies in Canada and abroad to re-examine what's required of them to support the Liberal commitment.
Officials with both the UN's refugee agency and the Canadian Red Cross were caught somewhat off guard by the news Tuesday that the original year-end deadline for the program had been tossed aside, along with a plan to process cases both in Canada and in the host countries.
The scope of the military's role has been altered as well; Operation Provision is no longer focused on an immediate requirement to arrange housing for thousands of people, potentially for months and instead the Canadian Forces will be called upon only if needed.
But despite the seemingly last-minute changes, all say the effort remains essential and just as urgent.
"Families I'm meeting at the moment, they are saying that if we don't get more help, we'll either transit to Europe illegally or we'll go back to living in Syria," Aoife McDonnell, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Jordan, said in an interview.
"It's a pretty tough choice for families to be making."
In Jordan, the UN began weeks ago to identify 7,000 Syrians so they could be in Canada by the end of the year in line with the original Liberal plan.
While 22 staff in Jordan pore over files, about 40 more are interviewing candidates. Working on weekends and evenings, they first alert families by text message that their file has been chosen and follow that with a phone call and then in-person meetings.
Many refugees have been in Jordan since 2013 and are being selected for resettlement because they are identified as vulnerable for socio-economic or medical reasons.
The UN first chooses the cases, then passes them off to Canadian officials for final review and approval. But the first batch of refugees to be resettled in Canada will largely be those with private sponsors; those the government is taking in through the UN will mostly arrive in 2016.
While the Liberals said Tuesday they want to identify all 25,000 people by year end, it wasn't clear whether that meant the only thing remaining for next year is travel or if processing will still be required.
What that all means for UN timelines is unclear; McDonnell said the original plan had been to have all files to the Canadians by Dec. 20.
"There's so much goodwill, from the Canadian side and from our team here, hopefully everything goes smoothly," McDonnell said.
About 85 per cent of Syrians in Jordan aren't living in refugee camps but in urban centres, scraping by below the poverty line and resorting to what the UN calls crisis coping strategies — skipping meals, pulling kids out of school, sometimes arranging for child marriages just to provide homes for daughters.
And there's the matter of the coming winter, something the Canadian Red Cross is keenly aware of as well.
With the Red Cross active on the ground in Syria and in countries like Jordan, their signs will be a lone familiar sight for many Syrians as they arrive in Canada.
Initially, the agency thought they'd be managing the temporary housing strategy, a program they expected to play out across military bases as refugees were to undergo final security screenings here.
But that's been scrapped and the Red Cross is pivoting towards co-ordinating efforts to welcome the refugees as they land in Montreal and Toronto and spread out from there.
That, too, could be an around-the-clock task, as flights may take off and land at all hours. It's still not clear whether some temporary accommodation will be required, nor the extent to which the provinces will need help, said Conrad Sauve, the chief executive officer for the Canadian Red Cross.
The change in plan isn't a problem, he said, given the organization's expertise in quick response to humanitarian emergencies.
"The more phases we remove in this, the more directly we bring them here to the communities — for people who've been running away from war and settling here and there and living in their suitcases, the better it is," he said.
Stephanie Levitz, The Canadian Press
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