Canadian prime minister comes face to face with boy named by his Syrian refugee parents to thank their adopted country

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, came face to face with his namesake as he met the baby of Syrian refugees who was named in his honour.

The meeting took place at the Calgary Stampede on Saturday, where two-month-old Justin Trudeau Adam Bilan slept happily as the prime minister briefly held him.

The boy’s parents, Muhammad and Afraa Bilan, named him as a gesture of thanks to the country that offered them sanctuary.

The family came to Canada from Damascus in February last year, after escaping the Syria’s war. Their son was born several months after their arrival in Alberta.

In December 2015 Trudeau greeted 163 Syrian refugees in Toronto, as the country prepared for thousands more arrivals. Since then 40,081 refugees have settled in the country.



This has not come without its challenges, and the families who have been resettled have talked about the difficulties of finding work and learning English or French.

Settlement agencies launched workshops to help refugees cope with the anxiety and some criticised the federal government for not doing enough for refugees.

Speaking last year, John McCallum, Canada’s minister for immigration, refugees and citizenship, said the government had increased funding for language training to address shortages across the country.

He said that while Canada’s ambitious project to settle tens of thousands of refugees was not perfect, it had gone extremely well. “And what makes me proud is not just that we got the job done, which we did – but there is still more to do – but really that if you compare Canada with other countries around the globe which are tending to close their doors to refugees, Canadians responded so overwhelmingly positively to the refugees.”