Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the safety of Canadians won't be compromised by the intake of 25,000 Syrian refugees. Trudeau says he is aware of people's concerns following the attacks in Paris.

“What’s going on? I just don’t recognize this country any more,” Olaf Kleist is recalling his reaction upon seeing thousands of Germans greeting Syrian refugees at train stations in September and then volunteering en masse to help them out in the following weeks.

Kleist, who has taught at the Free University and at Humboldt University both in Berlin, is now doing a research fellowship in refugee resettlement at Oxford University in England.

Germany is the main destination for thousands of refugees who have shown up in Western Europe since the summer. The German government estimates it will have to settle 800,000 of them by the end of 2015 — mostly from Syria and some from Afghanistan and Iraq.

“It is a struggle for local communities in Germany. They have to house and provide for refugees,” Kleist told Yahoo News Canada. “We have lots of volunteers doing the main work, which is the problem.”

Indeed some of Germany’s challenges could have echoes in Canada ever since the new government of Justin Trudeau confirmed last week it would make good on a promise to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of the year.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday, Trudeau reiterated his intention over the weekend at the G20 summit in Turkey, declaring that the task of integrating newcomers would be founded on defining “a country not on national identity or ethnicity or language or background, but on values.”

But the resettlement issue has been complicated after it was reported that one of the Paris attackers may have entered Europe as a Syrian refugee in Greece. So there is considerable concern over the UN’s ability to pre-screen refugees, which former immigration minister Jason Kenney has described as cursory at best. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told CTV’s Question Period his department was working with the RCMP, CSIS and international agencies to make sure the screening process was as thorough, competent and effective as possible.

Challenging logistics

Little has been divulged by the Liberal government on a specific plan of action to bring those refugees to Canada and to resettle them.

Kleist, who also founded the Refugee Research Network, wonders how Trudeau’s government will be able to process the refugees (interviews, medical checkups, security checks), bring them to Canada and then start the process of settlement.

“We had a similar program instituted in Germany in 2013 to bring 5,000 one year, then another 5,000 and then 10,000,” he says.

“Bringing them to Germany took much longer…It is difficult to do quickly.”

Canadian officials have revealed they are working with different agencies in order to fast-track refugees, i.e., the International Organization for Migration and the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, in addition to sending more agents to the field (Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan) to help with the selection process.

Indications are they will first be flown to one of three locales: Montreal, Toronto and the Trenton, Ont. military base. This is where, Kleist and others have warned, things get sticky.

“There is a humanitarian challenge of housing so many people,” said Kleist when pondering what is happening in Germany. Some towns have resorted to setting up military-style encampments in fields or parks while other smaller towns feel overwhelmed by refugees being bussed to their district with little federal help.

In Berlin, the former Nazi airport, Tempelhof, is now being used for refugees. More than 2,000 refugees are now housed in three of seven empty hangars. A total of 8,000 are expected to be sheltered there by the end of the year.

Kleist says there’s a disconnect in terms of pronouncements by Angela Merkel’s government and what is actually happening on the ground.

Housing headache

Gloria Nafziger, a refugee and migrant support co-ordinator with Amnesty International Canada, agrees with Kleist.

“Housing is a big concern. It’s an issue for a lot of Canadians as well — affordable housing,” she told Yahoo News Canada.

“We have a big advantage over Germany in that we control when the refugees show up and where. They had to contend with hundreds of thousands showing up at their doorstep within months.”

Despite that difference, Nafziger still has worries about having to settle such a large number of refugees in such a short time.

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