On World Refugee Day, Minister of Immigration and Refugees John McCallum says Canadians can be proud of the fact that the country is welcoming 44,000 refugees this year.

The minister’s comments, made on CTV News Channel, come as a new United Nations report says that a record 65 million people were displaced in 2015.

Although McCallum says Canadians have stepped up, he admits the number Canada is taking is a tiny portion of those in need.

McCallum said German Chancellor Angela Merkel “has been a real heroine” for allowing in more than a million migrants -- many of them considered refugees.

“I mean, she’s in some trouble for it now,” he said, “but I think it was an amazing gesture.”

“I think the world overall is not responding very well to this vast number of refugees,” McCallum added, stating that intolerance is preventing some nations from taking their share.

“I think that is why the world took such notice when we stepped up to the plate under Justin Trudeau’s leadership, when he met that first plane of refugees and that photograph went around the world,” he said.

“Canada stood out a little in that we stepped up so fast when so many other countries were closing their doors or keeping them shut.”

Most refugees are living in states bordering their homelands, with Tukey, Pakistan, Lebanon, Iran, Ethiopia and Jordan hosting the largest numbers.

According to the new UN report, the total number of refugees that the UNHCR admitted for resettlement to third countries was a mere 107,100.

The top destinations for those refugees were the United States (66,500), Canada (20,000), Australia (9,400) and Norway (2,400).