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If Canada were Syria, large parts of this country would be wrecked: abandoned by the living and home to the dead.

But which parts, precisely? Where might the wreckage lie?

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Syria’s crisis is unfathomable to all but those ruined by it; 470,000 people are dead. Another 11,300,000 are displaced. Numbers this absurd must be made familiar to be believed.

As things stand, the crisis remains inaccessible. Population indicators are obviously poor measures of collective trauma. Syria’s war is certainly much worse than suggested by the comparison to Canada that you’re about to find here. This one won’t reflect the particular geography of war. Nor will it adjust for Canada’s population size, which is larger than Syria’s; nor reflect the full losses to a country’s culture and society.

Still, let’s say it’s enough, for the moment, to account for the loss of human beings.

Having come to terms with the weakness of the whole exercise, we might consider the most gentle possible reckoning of what would happen to our country, then, If Canada Were Syria: Ottawa is deserted. Toronto is deserted. Montreal: deserted. Vancouver, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Calgary, Saskatoon, and Guelph are ghost towns, too, as are Brockville and Perth. As for Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon — these also, whole provinces, have been vacated.