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The Toronto Star’s Tim Harperthinks the reaction to Alan Kurdi’s death in Turkey has lifted the veil on the Conservatives’ “unnecessarily hard-hearted” refugee policies, and left the Tories a bit stunned as a result. We don’t think there’s anything hugely “hard-hearted” about Canada’s refugee policies by international or historical standards; certainly we could have done much more for Syrians, but you could say that for most countries, and you could say it about any number of other refugee populations around the world as well.

But goodness, do the Conservatives ever make life difficult for themselves. If Immigration Minister Chris Alexander weren’t such a braying ass, and had his government not pursued their silly cuts to refugee health care, they wouldn’t be nearly so vulnerable to these charges on the campaign trail. Not being jerks comes with perks.

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The Vancouver Sun’s Daphne Bramhamcorrectly notes that the number of refugees Canada accepts has been dropping since 2006 — about 30 per cent as of 2014. She complains “we are now as much a warrior state as a humanitarian nation,” and that “we do neither on a scale large enough to make a real difference” — which is about right, although we’ve always been a “warrior state.” (See: all those wars.) Bramham thinks we should think hard about all this “before we choose our new government,” which is sensible advice. Mind you, for now at least, political ambition on this file tops out at Justin Trudeau’s promise of resettling 25,000 Syrian refugees.