Former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole and the Bloc Québécois said Thursday that they want parliamentary hearings into a Globe and Mail report that then-defence minister Harjit Sajjan directed the Canadian military to mount a rescue operation for Afghan Sikhs after the fall of Kabul in 2021, an action the senior cabinet minister said was government policy.
“There should be a Commons committee inquiry on this,” Mr. O’Toole said. “The government has a lot to answer for this because it is clear there were other politics and priorities at work.”in late August after the U.S. decision to withdraw from the central-Asian country created a massive refugee crisis. The chaos and danger that unfolded presented a difficult challenge to Canada and other Western countries trying to evacuate their nationals and Afghans who worked alongside them.
The Globe reported Thursday that Mr. Sajjan not only directed Canadian forces to rescue Afghan Sikhs but relayed location information and other details about them to the military as special operation forces worked to meet up with the group. The information was passed to him from a Canadian Sikh group that was in contact with these Afghan Sikhs.
“I can guarantee we left people behind because of that,” he said. “We probably left from 500 to 1,000 people easy. Probably more than that. There are still hundreds we are trying to get out.”
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