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But all 25,000 would be identified by year end.

Then, both the numbers and the date shifted again — the immigration minister said last week that there’s no guarantee 10,000 Syrians will be in Canada by the end of this week, though he said the full 25,000 should still arrive by the end of February.

But identifying all 25,000 by year end was replaced with identifying 10,000 by year-end.

According to the immigration department, as of Dec. 26, 2,413 had arrived. A further 1,452 were scheduled to arrive on flights on Dec. 27 and Dec. 28. How many will arrive in the final three days of the year is unclear. Nine government flights currently appear on the schedule.

Also as of Dec. 26, a total of 7,218 — including those who have arrived — have been approved to come to Canada.

A variety of reasons have been given for the changing terms, ranging from public pressure to take more time to ensure security concerns are addressed to weather forcing the delays of flights.

Government officials and the responsible ministers have held regular briefings with the press and refugee service providers to keep them abreast of the program changes but Van Kessel says that’s all just political “mumbling.”

There are two potential fallouts from affixing that much political pressure to get the job done: that bureaucrats feel the need to take shortcuts to make it happen and that other programs suffer as a result, he said.

For the former, it may not be known ever whether any corners were cut to get that many refugees to Canada in keeping with the deadline, Van Kessel acknowledged. And when it comes to other programs, McCallum has said that refugee processing from other parts of the world isn’t being held back.

But Van Kessel says given the number of public servants deployed to work on the Syrian program, it’s impossible think other programs aren’t suffering.

He said he thinks it’s important that the Liberals be kept accountable for the deadlines and targets they’ve set, but just wishes they had taken a simpler path in the first place — acknowledge the original promise wasn’t going to work and then just get to work doing what they could, while providing updates along the way.

“The resettlement program is a damn good program,” he said, “and I don’t like this playing politics all the time with it.”