News that the family of that Syrian boy who drowned off the coast of Turkey was trying to get to Canada and had been rejected touched off a political firestorm yesterday, and it wasn’t until hours later that some clarity was brought to the situation – that the sister of the boy’s father was in Canada and applying to sponsor her family, starting with her older brother, then the child’s father and his family (which included a wife and another son, all of whom were lost when their boat capsized). Chris Alexander made a show of “suspending his campaign” to come to Ottawa to meet with officials, but his campaign really wasn’t suspended – he just wasn’t door-knocking, and then he hid out from the media in the airport and ended up going out a back way in order to avoid them. Statements from the aunt in Vancouver and the government clarified some of the statements around the events with their refugee application, but much of the damage had already been done, and the government looks poorly for it – particularly because of the slow pace at which they are assisting refugees in the area, and padding their figures with those refugees from Iraq, and the fact that they appear to be cherry-picking those from religious and ethnic minorities. Harper hasn’t really helped, insisting that this is really about ISIS and saying that it’s more important that we carry on the fight against them – never mind that a) Assad and the Syrian government forces have killed more Syrians by far than ISIS or any other faction, and b) air strikes are not going to stop ISIS and the government knows it. He also insists that we’re one of the most generous countries in assisting refugees, but the numbers simply don’t show that. University of Ottawa professor Roland Paris shares some thoughts on the situation, while Scott Gilmore argues that we should take in twenty times the number of refugees being promised now, up to as many as 200,000, which we could pay for by cancelling a couple of boutique tax credits. Michael Petrou notes the real problem of the war in Syria.

On the campaign:

• The refugee issue pretty much dominated the day, derailing most planned events, with responses from Harper, Mulcair and Trudeau.
• Mulcair did talk about meeting with the premiers about public pensions.

Good reads:

• John Geddes explores Chris Alexander’s antipathy toward the media.
• Kady O’Malley looks into what happens if a minister resigns during an election campaign.
• Also taking a break from the invisible (apparently) campaign trail is Joe Oliver, who is headed to a G20 economic summit.
• Pamela Wallin is returning to work – such as it is when Parliament is dissolved – now that her suspension is lifted (we’ll see for how long).
• Omar Khadr wants his bail conditions eased so that he can make a trip to Toronto to see his family.
• The Canadian Press’ Baloney Meter™ checks the claims that the government ran eight straight deficits (spoiler: It’s “a lot of baloney,” at least for now.)

Odds and ends:

Some data suggests that a recession could actually help an incumbent government.

Peter Penashue, the former minister who resigned over campaign finance issues in the last election, is running again in Labrador.