The County of Essex is contributing $5,000 towards relief efforts in the Syrian refugee crisis.
Tecumseh Mayor Gary McNamara asked his council colleagues to back the move saying the refugees are facing a devastating situation.
"I think we need to reach into our hearts and look at the devastation and always remember we're living in an unbelievable country with unbelievable richness and these individuals are displaced," says McNamara. "They'll never see their home as they ever did."
McNamara pointed to other municipalities like Kitchener and Ajax as already contributing money to the cause while expressing his frustration with the federal government's response to refugee crisis.
"You look at Germany right now who are taking in 800,000 [refugees] and they're bursting at the seams in those areas," says McNamara. "Here we've got, at the moment, a federal government, in my opinion, that's washing their hands to a degree."
As of late July, the federal government reported just over 1,000 Syrian refugees had been accepted into Canada. The immigration minister has put that figure at 2,300 resettled Syrian refugees as of earlier this month.
Council unanimously backed the donation which the federal government is now matching.
