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By Michael Tutton,

HALIFAX — Former prime minister Joe Clark says he believes Canadian officials can overcome obstacles to speed up the acceptance of Syrian refugees, much as his government found ways to airlift Vietnamese boat people after he won office in 1979.

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“We have the capacity to do more. … I think everyone recognizes that and we have a tradition of doing more,” he said in an interview Friday from his home in Ottawa.

Canadian civil servants are capable of assessing possible security risks among Syrian refugees, Clark said, as they did when his government sent teams of officials overseas to process thousands of Vietnamese applicants living in crowded refugee camps.

Clark said his Progressive Conservative government adopted and expanded on the policies put in place by a former Liberal government to directly assist Indochinese refugees who fled in rickety boats after the Communists took power in Hanoi.