When heart-rending images flashed across the world of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old from Syria who drowned off the Turkish coast, people everywhere were appalled. But the pang of conscience was especially acute in Canada. That was because Alan, his five-year-old brother, Galib, and their mother, Re-han, all of whom perished, might possibly be alive now had it not been for a tightening in Canadian immigration policy. The boys' aunt, who has lived in Vancouver for 20 years, had been trying to secure entry for her two brothers and their families. That was a very painful thought for a country which rightly or wrongly loves to think of itself as being a "helpful fixer" of the world's problems. As an immediate result, refugees became a bone of contention in campaigning for Canada's general election in October. The drowned family meant that "Canada has failed", Tom Mulcair, leader of the centre-left New Democratic Party (ndp), declared. He is challenging the Conservative government led by Stephen Harper.
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