The Liberal government is being accused of breaking one of their key election promises after saying that a combination of government and private sponsorship will be used to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of the year.

The Liberal election platform promised to “expand Canada’s intake of refugees from Syria by 25,000 through immediate government sponsorship.” It added that a Liberal government would “also work with private sponsors to accept even more.”

The promise was made after pictures of three-year-old Alan Kurdi’s lifeless body on a Turkish beach in September prompted criticism of the Conservative government’s reliance on private rather than government sponsorship. Members of Alan’s extended family had tried to be privately sponsored to come to Canada, but were rejected.

Speaking to reporters Thursday in advance of his first trip abroad as prime minister, Justin Trudeau said resettling 25,000 Syrian refugees “is a significant commitment that will make a big difference.” He acknowledged it will be a “tremendous challenge,” but added: “It’s something I have a great deal of confidence on.”

Yet with exactly seven weeks until that deadline expires, and questions mounting over whether the promise can actually be kept, Immigration Minister John McCallum said the 25,000 to be resettled by Dec. 31 will include both government-assisted and privately sponsored refugees.

“What we have said from the beginning is that we are committed to government-sponsored refugees and in addition we encourage the private sector to come forward as much as they can with private sponsorship,” McCallum said. “So we will have a mix of the two.”

Asked for clarification, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada spokeswoman Diane Laursen said in an email that the Liberals actually have two targets. The “short-term objective” is to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees through private and government sponsorship by the end of the year, she said.

“Additional government-sponsored refugees will arrive into the new year as the government meets a specific target of 25,000 government-sponsored Syrian refugees,” she added.

Including privately sponsored refugees makes the new government’s job to resettle 25,000 Syrians by the end of the year much easier. According to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, nearly 1,800 Syrians have arrived in the country since the previous government promised to accept 10,000 by 2017.

Of those, the government sponsored only 275, while nearly 1,500 arrived through private sponsorship. There are also hundreds of applications from church groups, community associations and other private sponsors currently being processed by Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

But the suggestion the government actually made two promises came as a surprise to many, who had long understood that any privately sponsored Syrian refugees would be on top of the 25,000 government-assisted refugees to be resettled by the end of the year.

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan, whose party had promised a more modest target of 10,000 Syrian refugees resettled through government sponsorship by the end of the year, accused the Liberals of backtracking on one of their key election campaign commitments.

“I certainly hope Minister McCallum misspoke today,” Kwan said in a statement. “The ink is barely dry on his appointment. It would be very discouraging if he were already backing away from their main campaign promise.”

Canadian Council for Refugees executive director Janet Dench was more circumspect. She said the Liberal platform clearly says the government will sponsor 25,000 Syrian refugees, with any privately sponsored refugees being in addition to that target.

“We wouldn’t mind if some of the government-assisted refugees came a bit later to make room for private-sponsored refugees that are almost ready to come before Dec. 31,” Dench said. “But the 25,000 must be government-assisted refugees.”

Meanwhile, SiriusXM is reporting that the government is looking at a plan to fly 1,000 Syrians per day out of Jordan to locations in Montreal, Toronto and Trenton, Ont. The refugees would be selected through a fast-track process, and spend 12 weeks of “community integration” at temporary locations after arriving in Canada.