In July 2013, Canada promised to resettle 1,300 refugees by 2015 and pledged $100 million in humanitarian aid. "1,063 Syrian refugees are already here in Canada. The rest will travel in the coming weeks" (Kevin Menard, spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Alexander). and the government agreed to resettle 11,300 refugees by the end of 2017, and then 10,000 by September 2016. Before the 2015 federal election, the Liberal Party of Canada promised to bring 25,000 refugees by the end of 2015. After the election, the newly formed Liberal government failed to meet its self-imposed deadline and it was moved to February 2016 and began further screening in the aftermath of the 2015 Paris attacks. Canadians have expressed considerable interest in receiving refugees and Canadian politicians and business leaders, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met the first two flights on 10 and 13 December 2015. At the end of 2015, Canada had arranged 96 flights to airlift refugees from their host countries, welcomed 35,000 refugees into 275 communities across the country, and agreed to resettle 35–50,000 refugees by the end of 2016. Resettlement arrangements for additional refugees and social integration of arriving refugees is ongoing. The cost over the subsequent six years was estimated between C$564 to C$678 million. Justin Trudeau stated that the most vulnerable would be accepted first, including families, children and members of the LGBT communities. Among the Syrian refugees accepted for resettlement are thousands of ethnic Armenians. On 27 February 2016 Canada met its goal of resettling 25,000 Syrian refugees. Canada continues to process applications and had accepted 40,081 refugees from November 2015 to January 2017. The government maintains at least two programmes for resettlement: refugees can be sponsored either under the Government-Assisted Refugee (GAR) programme, or under the Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program (PSR).