Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper get their hands dirty and help out with Alberta flood relief

Thousands of people made their way into High River Alberta over the past three days to help with post-flood relief and clean-up.

The caravan of volunteers included Liberal leader Justin Trudeau and Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

While both leaders released pictures of their efforts, it wasn't your traditional cheap political-photo op.

Throughout the weekend, Trudeau's communication staff said that the Liberal leader would be 'getting his hands dirty' and chipping-in but that media were not invited because they would be a distraction.

On Sunday evening, however, Trudeau tweeted this:

A spokesperson from Trudeau's office told Yahoo! Canada News that the leader "was there with a team of volunteers for the afternoon."

[ Related: Donning a cowboy hat and flipping pancakes: Justin Trudeau woos Albertans ]

Similarly, on Friday, the Prime Minister and his wife took time out of their Calgary Stampede schedule to help the people of High River.

Witnesses told the High River Times that Harper "carried drywall down to the pile and was of assistance on the assembly line."

A Conservative Party source told Yahoo! Canada News, that Harper and his wife worked for "several hours" cleaning out a damaged basement. The source said that Harper didn't want any media at the event.

But they did post a picture on Flickr.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May also spent the day in High River, on Friday, volunteering her time.

[ Related: Laureen Harper in Calgary: Working hard or hardly working? ]

So what's the takeaway from all this?

Firstly, we should commend Trudeau, Harper and May — and the thousands of other volunteers — for taking time out their busy schedules to help the flood victims.

More importantly, it's great that these were 'no media events' — even though the parties released pictures of themselves.

Hopefully politicians are starting to understand that politically motivated photo-ops in times of disaster are not appreciated by the public.

(Photo posted on Twitter by @JustinTrudeau)

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