Mr. Chair, thanks for the opportunity to add some more detail to the minister's statement.
I think we need to look at this in two periods—pre-August 15, before Kabul fell to the Taliban, and then post-August 15. Before August 15, yes, there were some flights that were not at full capacity. The reason was quite simple. Late in the game, the Government of Afghanistan imposed a requirement for all those leaving Afghanistan to have valid Afghan passports. Those Afghans could not get through Afghan government security at the airport to board those flights. That was the reason that a number of flights before August 15 were not at capacity.
After August 15, shortly after we re-established the air bridge, a number of the initial flights were not at full capacity, because we were just getting ourselves established with our troops on the ground. Finding sufficient numbers of Canadian entitled personnel, in the very, very small window that we had, was a challenge.
I will say, however, that in the latter part we certainly made up for those flights that weren't filled to complete capacity by putting many more on the flights than the planes were designed for. There were 534 Afghans in the back of a C-17 that was designed for 200. That's the type of measure our members on the ground took to get out as many Afghans as possible.