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Canada’s Trudeau meets tiny namesake, the son of refugees

Posted at 7:14 PM, Jul 16, 2017
and last updated 2017-07-16 19:18:47-04

(CNN) — Things got awfully adorable at Canada’s Calgary Stampede on Saturday.

That’s when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met his 2-month-old namesake, the son of Syrian refugees.

Photos tweeted by Trudeau’s official photographer showed the Prime Minister wearing a white stetson and holding little Justin-Trudeau Adam Bilal at the rodeo and festival in Alberta. The family left Syria about six years ago and settled in Canada in February 2016. The baby came in May.

The child’s mother, Afraa Hajj Hammoud, said her husband Mohammed Belal thought of the name — and she liked the idea.

“It will be a small thank you for Justin Trudeau,” she said.

Canada agreed to accept tens of thousands of Syrian refugees after the country’s 23rd Prime Minister took office. In November, another Syrian refugee family in nearby Red Deer, Alberta, also named their son Justin to honor Trudeau.

“For me he is wonderful and compassionate,” the father, Ahmed Doson, told CBC News. “I hope all leaders, whether Easterners or Westerners would be like him.”