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It isn’t overstating things to say that a little over two months ago a single photograph changed the course of Canadian history.

Up until the first week of September the vast majority of Canadians had never heard of Alan Kurdi any more than they had of the Syrian refugee crisis that led to the drowned three-year-old’s being washed up on a Turkish beach. But a photograph of his body published worldwide (and in the middle of a federal election campaign) jolted this country into noticing what has been described as the biggest humanitarian disaster since the Second World War.

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It didn’t matter that Syria had already been bleeding refugees for the past four years, and that hemorrhage of humanity had included the drownings of untold numbers of children. What mattered was that Canadians, suddenly confronted with so heartbreaking an image, did what most of them do best – they listened to that particularly Canadian sense of decency that demands we do something when people are desperate for help, and the politicians seeking their votes listened to the inevitable polls that made it clear Something Must Be Done.