Nearly a decade after the Syrian refugee crisis began, Canada remains transformed by its response

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It was a portrait of humanity’s failure: the photograph of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, who had escaped civil war in Syria only to drown in the Mediterranean Sea alongside his mother and brother.

The image of the little boy, lying face down and alone in the sand, in a red T-shirt and navy shorts, landed on front pages around the world and moved hearts and minds.

Alan Kurdi’s family had been trying to reach Canada. A federal election campaign was under way. And Justin Trudeau, not yet prime minister, seized on the mood of the public, vowing to accept 25,000 Syrian refugees if elected.

‘I feel this is my Syria now’: After fall of Assad regime, Syrians in Canada feel the pull and possibility of home

The plight of Syrians became a potent political issue in this country and a galvanizing social force, as ordinary Canadians joined the effort to resettle thousands of newcomers caught up in one of the largest displacement crises in the world.

The legacy of that national effort has come into renewed focus this week as thousands of Syrian refugees, many of whom had been living in camps or cramped apartments in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, finally returned home after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, the autocratic president whose brutal rule had sent them fleeing years ago. Syrians in Canada, many of whom have since gained Canadian citizenship and built lives here, are also excited for the opportunity to return, even if only as visitors, to finally see family members again.

Those who have gone back to Syria are only a fraction of the millions who fled the country after the outbreak of its civil war in 2011. While most seeking refuge ended up in neighbouring countries, tens of thousands found safety in Canada. They integrated into this country on the cusp of a period of turbulent global politics that have since rocked Canada and its allies, leading to an inward political turn and increasing curbs on migration.

Mr. Trudeau’s election promise had been a marked contrast with the incumbent prime minister Stephen Harper. Mr. Harper campaigned on policies that included a hotline for Canadians to report “barbaric cultural practices” and a move to ban women from wearing niqabs at citizenship ceremonies.

Less than two months after winning the election, Mr. Trudeau made an appearance at Toronto’s Pearson Airport. Within hours, many of the same media outlets that had carried photos of Alan Kurdi were running images of Canada’s new Prime Minister personally greeting Syrians with winter coats.

By February, 2016, the Liberal government’s policy had brought 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada, and by the end of that year, more than 44,000 Syrian refugees had arrived. Since the fall of 2015, Canada has resettled more than 100,000 Syrians in communities across the country.

The effects of the mass displacement are still palpable, both in Canada and around the world. In 2015, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor at the time, famously said “We’ll manage this.” Now, more than 800,000 Syrians are living in Germany, leading to an anti-immigrant backlash that scrambled German politics.

In Canada, resettling Syrians became a national project. Canadians came together to privately sponsor Syrian families under a government program that allowed them to cover many of the resettlement expenses. They also helped Syrians find their footing, enrolling children in schools and guiding their parents in opening bank accounts. (Privately sponsored refugees are also eligible for government-funded settlement services.)

Allan Rock, previously Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations and now a member of the World Refugee and Migration Council, said communities pulled together to gather winter clothes and belongings for refugees.

“We felt good about the effort, and the world noticed as well. We were seen to be a country of refuge, and proudly so. And I recall that very well, the feeling at the time that we were doing the right thing – that this was a collective endeavour that we all supported because it was right,” he said in an interview.

Ratna Omidvar, who was named to the Senate early in Mr. Trudeau’s first term and retired from that role last month, co-founded Lifeline Syria to bring Syrian refugees to Canada through private sponsorship.

She told The Globe and Mail that private sponsorship has long been one of the “quiet, successful” Canadian policies. “But the way it grabbed the imagination of Canadians after that very sad picture of that little boy hit our front pages – the people really galvanized.”

Attitudes in Canada and other Western countries toward refugees have shifted significantly since 2015, as different economic and political crises have fuelled a rise in isolationism. A number of countries in Europe, including Germany and Britain, announced this week that they would pause asylum requests from Syrians.

Last month, the federal government announced it was pausing its entire private sponsorship program. The Immigration Department noted that the program had existed for more than 40 years and became a model around the world. The government blamed the pause on a large backlog of cases.

Marwa Khobieh, executive director of the Syrian Canadian Foundation, said she is grateful she was able to witness the fall of the Assad regime.

She was raised in Montreal but returned to Syria when she was 10. She was there when the protests against the Assad regime began. But in 2012, she was forced to leave the country for her safety.

She thought she was coming to Canada to visit her sister for a month, but it was too dangerous to return to Syria. She hasn’t been back since.

Ms. Khobieh formed her organization in 2016, along with other Syrian Canadians. Their goal was to help Syrians as they settled in Canada. She remembers the outpouring of support from Canadians. Syrian families introduced their sponsor families to their culture and their food. Some sponsors started to learn Arabic, she recalled.

“It was a cross-cultural connection that really helped Syrians thrive in Canada and that was much needed,” she said.

Almost 10 years later, Ms. Khobieh said, many Syrian refugees have found success in Canada. And when it comes to deciding whether to return, she said, there is still a lot of uncertainty.

The country will need help to ensure that those who choose to return are going home to a safe and stable place, she said, “where Syrians can hopefully live peacefully and with the dignity that they deserve.”