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In the history of awkwardly re-touched photography, Rathika Sitsabaiesan’s parliamentary headshot is comparatively tame. Compared to the original, however, it is downright puritan.

The MP for the Toronto riding of Scarborough-Rouge River, the first Tamil Canadian MP and one of the young stars of the New Democrats’ Orange Crush, appears on the House of Commons website wearing a sleeveless white top that, in reality, shows the shadow of a modest cleavage.But in the picture that now appears online, her chest has been digitally painted over into a featureless terrain by a House of Commons photographer, in what a parliamentary spokeswoman says is common practice.

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Even so, it is likely less common to post the original on the Internet, where everything lasts forever, then replace it with the airbrushed version and hope no one notices the switch.

As it happened, Mark Austin of Old Barns, N.S., discovered the discrepancy this week and passed it to the blog contrarian.ca. He was searching for Ms. Sitsabaiesan’s picture because he and his wife were inspired by her performance in Question Period, and wanted to know more about her. He clicked on the picture with cleavage — still available on Google — and saw it vanish before his eyes as he was linked to the parliamentary webpage.