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“I remember the image of a young girl, her body burnt by napalm in the Vietnam War, running down the road towards the camera that took the shot that became the symbol of the war. Today’s media images of a young boy whose body is being taken off the beach will remain engraved in our minds.”

As a “dad and a grandfather, it’s just unbearable that we’re doing nothing.”

But while he repeated his call for Canada to “immediately” take in the 10,000 Syrian refugees requested by the United Nations, he cautioned that it was “too easy this morning to start assigning blame” for the current situation.

“Chris Alexander has a lot to answer for, but that’s not where we are right now,” he said. “We’re worried about how we got here — the collective international response has been so defective, and how Canada has failed so completely.”

In contrast, Justin Trudeau took the opportunity this morning to slam the Conservatives’ handling of the refugee crisis.

“You don’t get to suddenly discover compassion in the middle of an election campaign,” Trudeau told reporters, referring to Chris Alexander, the candidate for Ajax, and former immigration minister, who announced earlier on Thursday that he has temporarily suspended his election campaign.

“You either have it, or you don’t, and this government has ignored the pleas of Canadian NGOs, of opposition parties and of the international community that all believe that Canada should be doing more, and should have been doing more.”