Here’s a thought. Every senior bureaucrat in Canada’s immigration, foreign affairs and defence ministries should tape a picture of the drowned Syrian toddler, Alan Kurdi, next to his or her computer screen, as a reminder of the incoming Liberal government’s most urgent moral challenge.

There’s no more symbolically important file on Justin Trudeau’s swearing-in day agenda than lighting a fire under the Ottawa bureaucracy to honour his party’s campaign pledge to “expand Canada’s intake of refugees from Syria by 25,000 through immediate government sponsorship.”

Canadians will be looking for a sign from the Trudeau cabinet on Day One that the machinery of government has been galvanized to actively rescue some of the world’s most wretched refugees, not shrug them off into paperwork hell as Stephen Harper’s Conservatives were content to do. As Trudeau recently told CTV News, it’s important to “get cracking” before ministers get distracted by other issues.

Canada’s honour is on the line here. This will set the tone for this country’s renewed engagement on the world scene.

That said, the logistics of taking in so many refugees is daunting. Trudeau proposes to take in 10 times as many as Harper did. That’s no small pledge.

There are security, health and ID checks to be done, although the new Liberal government should err, if err it must, on the side of humanity. Officials need to transport and house the newcomers. Tent camps may work in the Middle East, but not here in the dead of winter. Beyond that, refugee support groups in Toronto and other cities need to mobilize and ensure that families get a good start. And willing employers need to lend a hand, training and hiring. All this will take a huge, coordinated effort.

As for the timing, we have already run down much of the clock for this year. Trudeau called on Harpermore than sevenmonths ago to resettle 25,000 refugees. And on Sept. 5, the Liberals offered to work across party lines to bring in the refugees over the next four months, by year’s end, if that could be agreed on. Sadly, it was not to be. To the end, the Harper government dragged its heels.

With the New Year fast approaching the Liberals are rightly sticking by their commitment to resettle 25,000 people. But it’s unrealistic to expect that the new government can get the job done in seven weeks after so much delay. Even refugee advocates caution against attempting to bring in so many, so quickly. Trudeau should walk back on that pledge, linked as it was to all-party support that never materialized.

A far more realistic goal, comparable to our resettlement of 60,000 Southeast Asian “boat people” over 18 months in the 1970s, would be to bring in the Syrians at the rate of a few thousand a month over the next eight months or a year.

As the Star has argued, Trudeau should make every effort to resettle as many as is practical by year’s end, with the rest to come later. It’s far more important to resettle people in a well-screened, well-supported way than to rush to meet an arbitrary deadline.

Reversing the Conservatives’ callous, years-long indifference toward the Syrian crisis can’t be managed in just a few weeks. The key thing is to get a more compassionate program rolling between now and year’s end, in close collaboration with refugee advocates and support groups.

That should be Trudeau’s goal. The commitment of 25,000 must stand. As for the timing, Canada should make haste, carefully. Syria’s refugees have been through enough. They should find sanctuary here, and a better life, not more uncertainty and distress.

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