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Yet, it was not “exactly what Harper said”: the Conservatives had promised to take in 10,000 refugees by September 2016, not January, as the Liberals propose. It was actually NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair who pledged to bring in 10,000 by the end of this year.

Second, Trudeau didn’t label his critics racist, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne did. She has rightly been called out for that ignorant and obnoxious comment, including by former B.C. premier and federal Liberal cabinet minister Ujjal Dosanjh.

But some people will never be happy. Another reaction among some Conservatives is that the Liberals knew all along that they wouldn’t be able to keep their promise, but used it anyway to win the election, with the full intention of changing it if they won.

Again, I don’t think that’s true. Trudeau first articulated his pledge to bring in 25,000 refugees in May. That was six months before the end of the year, which would have been ample time to implement it. Had the Tories wanted to take the wind out of his sails, they could have brought in more refugees themselves before calling the vote, but did not.

Then the game changed. During the election campaign, the migrant crisis exploded in Europe, little Alan Kurdi’s lifeless body washed up on a Turkish beach and the CBC’s Rosie Barton skewered former immigration minister Chris Alexander on national television. Syrian refugees suddenly became a hot election issue.

None of this was predictable. Neither were the ISIL attacks in Paris two weeks ago. Again, events altered the public mood. Fear reared its ugly head. A mosque in Peterborough, Ont., was vandalized and two Muslim women attacked. Sadly, some Canadians who did harbour racism seized the occasion to express it. Other Canadians who supported refugee resettlement suddenly felt uneasy about ISIL potentially infiltrating the process, especially with a timeline that felt so rushed.