As the Syrian refugee crisis continues to dominate the headlines in Canada, I am struck by the narcissistic pats on the back we keep giving ourselves.

It’s as if this was a new policy initiative unique to Liberal “sunny ways”, rather than a discombobulating of a great framework put in place by Stephen Harper.

You’d think a refugee had never reached our shores, when the reality is we have brought in 25,000 refugees every year since 2006.

Plus, approximately another 250,000 immigrants annually, and fitted them into Canadian society and the workforce rather seamlessly and without cultural dislocation.

The Conservatives worked with non-government organizations (NGOs) and the United Nations, providing a non-civil service backdrop to this humane activity.

We did not exploit the misery of refugees for political purposes but went about our business in a professional manner.

For this Jason Kenney and Chris Alexander deserve our thanks.

Early in 2015, the Harper government set a target of bringing in more than 10,000 Syrian refugees by 2017; during the election we announced that we would bring in another 10,000 as part of our contribution to the unholy mess that is Syria today.

I should note, that matched the 10,000 refugees the U.S. had promised to bring in.

Of the Justin Trudeau promise, there are still questions our “sunny ways” media have not asked.

For example, is the 25,000 the Liberals promised on top of the 25,000 refugees we are already taking in from around the world, or are they a substitute, leaving refugees from equally horrific situations standing in the dark?

Another puzzler is how on earth anybody thought we could bring in 25,000 between Nov. 4 and the end of 2015?

Remember the Liberals promised they would bring in 25,000 on the government ticket in addition to – not including – those brought in by NGOs.

The reality is they will not even reach the 10,000 mark for this year, because that number, which they’re sticking to, will include what the third parties and the “mean” Tory government had processed.

They will have great difficulty bringing in 25,000 by the end of February and even if they do, most of those will be processed by the policies of the previous government.

While the “sunny ways” media and the “sunny ways” Liberal government patted themselves on the back over a policy that is nearly identical to the one put in place by the Harper government, they falsely raised the expectations of thousands of refugees by their political posturing.

This is a cruel and unwarranted byproduct of that original false promise. Accepting refugees is a difficult and time-consuming process to do right.

Bringing in a terrorist or a refugee with a terrible communicable disease only hurts the policy in the long run.

The Conservatives built and put into place a rather professional approach using our heads, not just our hearts.

The government of Prime Minister Trudeau is not doing anything new.

While some media are providing excuse after excuse as to why the Liberals are not meeting their targets and lauding the new prime minister for having the courage to back off his original one, I wonder if it has occurred to anyone that Trudeau might have simply lied to help win the election.

Nah, he wouldn’t have done that.

-- Tkachuk is a Conservative Senator for Saskatchewan