I think we need to recall that on August 15, 2021, when Kabul fell to the Taliban, Prime Minister Trudeau called an election. I think there's some relevance here to some of what went on—some of what happened and some of what didn't happen.
I'm a very pragmatic person, sir, and work with the tools that are available, and there was no time. It was announced officially that Canada would be gone by August 31, but we were told unofficially that Canada would be gone by August 27. Indeed, I certainly didn't know that HKIA, the airport at Kabul, was going to be bombed on August 26, thus shutting down the entire air bridge.
What I did know in those days—and they were only days—was that we were working to get mostly women and their families out, and we had no time. We had to use the resources and the relationships that were available. That's what I tried to do.