Premier Kathleen Wynne will join Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in throwing out the welcome mat for Syrian refugees.

“Tonight I will be going to Pearson Airport help welcome the first plane carrying Syrian refugees who will settle in Ontario over the coming months,” Wynne told reporters at Queen’s Park on Thursday.

“Arriving in a new country will no doubt be an exciting but an overwhelming experience for these new Canadians, but I’m very confident that people across the province will welcome them and will demonstrate the same kind of compassion that we have historically showed to each other,” she said.

“Ontario has been actively preparing for a smooth and welcoming settlement,” the premier said, noting Citizenship and Immigration Minister Michael Chan and Health Minister Eric Hoskins have been hard at work with municipalities, refugee agencies, and volunteer groups.

“I want to just thank all of the people who have stepped up.”

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With 25,000 Syrian refugees coming to Canada by the end of February, some 10,000 are expected to settle in Ontario, which has earmarked $10.5 million for the effort.

“There’s a huge outpouring of support and we may even find that there are more supports than there are people in the first instance,” she said.

Wynne was also asked about the anti-Muslim comments from billionaire Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in next November’s U.S. election.

Trump announced earlier this week proposed “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

That has provoked an outcry from leaders around the world.

“The rhetoric that has come out of Donald Trump … is despicable,” Wynne said.

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“Everything he has said in this vein is antithetical to what I believe. I think it’s antithetical to a harmonious, pluralistic society, and it is antithetical to the compassion and the outpouring of support … that will manifest itself tonight when the first wave of Syrian refugees arrive here in Ontario,” she said.

“It’s up to the United States to deal with Donald Trump, but I can tell you that the kind of divisive, hostile rhetoric that he has been espousing I think does damage. It divides people and I think it is generally dangerous in terms of a democratic society.”

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