I can't say that this is much of a surprise to me.
There are a few factors at work here, IMO.
First, the Media has conflated the issue of the European "refugee crisis" by making it look bigger than it was. How many people here have noticed that you regularly saw pictures of alleged "huge" columns of refugees on the march, but when you paid attention to the top of the pictures, you could see that the tight column just ended a few hundred feet further. these pictures did not denote "thousands and thousands" of refugees on the march everywhere, but a few hundred in one specific location - likely a group traveling together. Similarly, I am sure the media showing the "assault" on European borders probably was filmed at the specific locations where such "assault" was carried out and therefore, by its very nature the pictures exaggerated the overall reality.
Secondly, no distinction was made during the crisis between economic migrants and real refugees. Yes some refugees were in the masses (at some specific points, likely the majority were refugees), but if the number of real refugees was actually determined and then compared to the number of Syrians displaced by the civil war and taking refuge out of country, I suspect that the proportion of refugees that want to get into Europe, or the West generally, is not that high. In fact, I suspect that, like refugees every where else, the first and foremost hope of the large majority of refugee is being able to go back home, and the sooner the better.
This leads to my third and last point: There is a false belief in the USA but also in Canada, though not to the same extent, that we live in the best country in the world and that the whole world is beating a path to get in here and live like we do. In my experience, nothing can be further from the truth. There will always be people that wish to immigrate to North America and start a new life, but by and large, the citizens of other countries, when they even know anything about Canada or the US*, are quite happy with their societies and to spend their life in their own countries, without any inkling of moving somewhere else.
*: Anybody see that family being processed for Canada on the National yesterday? They decided to apply after checking Canada on the internet and discovering, in their words, that Canada has forests and lakes and nature like Syria and that this fact clenched it for them.
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