Mayor John Tory wants 'careful' refugee process following Paris attacks

Mayor John Tory says that he'd be in favour of giving the federal government leeway on its promise to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of the year — if that would ensure that the humanitarian effort is done "in a way that is careful in safeguarding our interests."

Tory spoke to reporters about the refugee plan Monday morning in the wake of the Paris attacks Friday, in which 129 people were killed and hundreds more were injured.

• Sask. Premier Brad Wall asks feds to suspend Syrian refugee plan

• Syrian refugee plan has officials 'working around the clock,' McCallum says

The Mayor said that political promises should always be secondary to doing things the right way for the Canadian people.

"All of these things need to be done properly and thoroughly and carefully," said Tory. "I think that everybody would expect that and I would just say that I would hope we'd place a premium on that, which is doing things right and doing them carefully as opposed to being unduly concerned with what I'll call political promises."

So far Liberals intend to keep promise

That political promise goes back to the election campaign, when the Liberals criticized the response of the Conservative government to the Syrian refugee crisis, and said they'd increase the number of refugees coming to Canada. Justin Trudeau pledged to bring 25,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq to Canada by the end of December.

Since the Liberal cabinet was sworn-in, the new Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship John McCallum has made it clear that the government intends to honour that promise. 

"It certainly remains our objective to get them here by the end of the year," said McCallum during an interview on CBC News Network's Power & Politics. 

To do so, McCallum said his department is working "around the clock" with officials across various department including national defence, public safety and health.

Federal officials are also consulting with the provinces, and other groups, both domestically and at the international level.