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As of Saturday, the Catch-22 document predicament the Kurdi families faced, and which was proving an insurmountable barrier for almost all G5 sponsorship resettlement applications for Syrian refugees, has been eliminated. The March-June paper trail that connects the drowned Kurdis to Alexander’s office runs almost exactly parallel to consultations between Alexander’s senior officials, the Canadian Council for Refugees, and others, about the impassable roadblock confronting G5 applicants. That roablock was not lifted until Saturday.

“This is a very important announcement. It wouldn’t have surprised us if they had made it months ago, because they knew about the problem months ago,” Janet Densch of the Canadian Council for Refugees told me over the weekend. “I suppose it’s because of all this pressure, they’ve finally decided to budge.”

The “budge” is in the lifting of the requirement for papers showing UNHCR convention refugee status determination, which is near to impossible for Turkey’s two million Syrian refugees to obtain, and almost as hard to get for the two million more in Lebanon and Jordan.

“That is the part of the announcement that is critical. This is going to give hope to thousands of people who had no hope before,’ Densch said. “It’s just too bad that it took the government this long to get around to it.”

Tima Kurdi left for Europe last week to visit family members who have fled Syria and to plead with Europeans to focus sharper attention on the Syrian crisis. But her husband, Rocco Logozzo, told me that it was the inaction on the Catch-22 that led Mohammad Kurdi to flee Turkey to Germany, and also led Abdullah Kurdi to attempt the sea crossing that resulted in the deaths by drowning of his wife and two children three weeks ago.

“As I’ve stated before, all the families needed was a sliver of hope that coming to Canada was possible. Both Mohammad and Abdullah would not have made that trip if this hope existed,” he said.

However: “We do not blame Canadians or Minister Chris Alexander for the tragedy that happened. Nobody, including the minister, could have foreseen the tragic events that unfolded.”

Someone had to take responsibility for Canada’s troubled refugee system, Logozzo said, adding: “I think Minister Alexander has now taken this responsibility by announcing these positive changes.”