Burlington Mayor Rick Goldring thinks the city could host 120 Syrian refugees.

Speaking at a jam-packed public meeting on Burlington's response to the Syrian refugee crisis Tuesday night, Goldring said that is a proportionate number based on the city's share of Canada's population.

The actual number of refugees expected to come to the city by the end of the year is not yet clear, said Goldring.

"The challenge is finding the real estate," he told The Spectator. "The only real limit is based on that resource."

Though the city could tap into the Halton Community Housing Corporation, that already has a waiting list of 3,900, he said.

So far five private sponsors have been approved in Burlington, but public interest has been so significant that the mayor believes that number will skyrocket.

Burlington's newly elected Liberal MP, Karina Gould, said she was proud that the response to the Syrian refugee crisis was not a government project, but rather a national one, referring to Canada's unique system that allows both private and government sponsorship of refugees.

Gould said the majority of refugees arriving before Dec. 31 are expected to be coming through private sponsorships.

"We have a lot to give in this community," she said. "I'm excited to see what we offer."

The federal government has pushed back its deadline for settling 25,000 refugees to the end of February. Ten thousand Syrians are expected by the end of the year, with Ontario pledging to take in roughly 4,000 in that period.

The refugees are expected to arrive mainly from camps in Jordan and Lebanon, and the feds are looking to spread those people across 36 cities in Canada. In Ontario, six settlement communities have been identified: Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Ottawa, Toronto and Windsor.

Goldring said he believes those cities were selected as the centres "for a broader region."

"The only difference between this and the amount of refugees we normally accept is that this is a consolidated group that is coming over a short-period of time, but our community groups and government institutions are already equipped to deal with this," Goldring said.

So far, the mayor says, the city has not had any corporations step forward and declare interest in helping. He believes Wesley Urban Ministries will attempt to function as a point of contact for Burlington much as it has for Hamilton.

Gillian Kearns, of Wesley Urban Ministries, said talks with Burlington were in their early stages, and they had not located specific facilities as of yet.

"We're not going to house all (the refugees) in Hamilton, so we're looking at the surrounding area as well," said Kearns. Although her organization was looking as far as Brantford and St. Catharines for help, Burlington was an obvious front-runner because of its proximity, she said.

The meeting on Tuesday was the first of a series of meetings the city is hoping to conduct with the community. In its first meeting it planned to come up with general ideas for helping refugees through community response. Over time those ideas will be synthesized and turned into a specific action plan.

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Wesley Urban Ministries and The City of Burlington invite those interested in contributing to go to their websites and register: Burlington.ca/welcomesyria or Wesley.ca/refugee-information-portal.

Anything, from donating clothes to sponsoring a refugee, would help, said Goldring.