OTTAWA -- Conservative Leader Stephen Harper and NDP Leader Tom Mulcair put forward sharply contrasting visions Friday of the role Canada's military should play in relieving the international humanitarian crisis that has all but consumed the federal election campaign.
Mulcair dismissed military action -- specifically Canada's current bombing campaign in Syria and Iraq -- as a solution to the refugee flood that is overwhelming Europe and captivating worldwide public attention.
Speaking at a seniors' residence in Brossard, Que., on Friday, Mulcair said the gut-wrenching plight of a drowned three-year-old Syrian boy whose family wanted to come to Canada is not the kind of tragedy that can be solved by military force.
"When I hear the answers from the prime minister, saying, 'Well, more war is the solution,' well, no amount of military action would have saved that child on that beach," Mulcair said of Alan Kurdi, whose tiny body was photographed washed up in the surf after a failed attempt by his family to flee Turkey for Greece.
"Let's start acting to save lives immediately. Canada's done it in the past and we can do it again."
Alan, his five-year-old brother Ghalib Kurdi and their mother, Rehanna, died this week in an unsuccessful attempt to reach Europe by boat. The father, Abdullah, survived. The tragedy sparked bitter partisan arguments over whether Canadian officials had rejected a refugee bid by Alan's uncle, or if the application simply lacked complete documentation.
Asked if there was any role at all for Canada's military in stopping the refugee crisis, Mulcair was emphatic: "The NDP disagrees with the use of Canada's armed forces in that conflict. We've been clear on that since the beginning."
At a Conservative rally in Whitehorse, Harper pounced, calling the NDP's approach a "cop out" that is "deeply ideological."
"It is deeply wrong and it is out of step with what Canadians believe," Harper said.
There's nothing contradictory about helping refugees and launching an aerial bombardment of fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, he said.
He then moved to pivot the refugee issue away from Thursday's emotional hand-wringing over whether Canada is doing enough fast enough to aid people displaced by the Syrian conflict toward safer Conservative territory of national security.
"Forget about how wrong that is from a humanitarian compassionate sense that we would allow our own security to be threatened in that way, a group like this to set itself up as an empire in the middle of the world, to launch terrorist attacks against us?" he asked, his voice rising in incredulity.
Campaigning Friday in Richmond Hill, Ont., Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau focused on the logistics of bringing Syrian refugees to Canada more quickly.
"There's been a bit of a catch-22 that the UN can't designate someone until they're accepted in Canada, and that they can't be accepted in Canada until the UN designates them," Trudeau said.
"It is more likely more complex than that, but I think it is very clear that what is needed in this case is for leadership in our country that stands up and says we want to start accepting tens of thousands of refugees in an immediate way."
The humanitarian crisis has side-swiped a central debate in the race to the Oct. 19 federal election, which had been shaping up as a battle over economic management.
Unemployment figures for August released Friday added more grist to that mill. Statistics Canada reported the Canadian economy gained 12,000 jobs last month, bolstered by gains in full-time employment. However, because more people were looking for work, the jobless rate actually increased to 7.0 per cent, up from 6.8 per cent.
The goods-news, bad-news employment report was ideal material for election spin for any partisan camp.
