Evidence of meeting #124 for National Defence in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was evacuation.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
Again, what are you referring to? Is it to the evacuation itself?
Conservative
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Specifically, in those final hours, when things were going sideways, we know that there were Canadians, Afghan interpreters and others who were trying to get through the wire to get into the airport and were being denied, and special operations forces and JTF 2 had to leave the airport.
Are you aware—
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
They had to leave the airport.... I think it's important for you to clarify—
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
They had to get to a rendezvous point, didn't they?
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
I think you're trying to say something without specifics. If you could ask me very directly, then I can answer the question more clearly.
When you talk about a rendezvous point, it seems to me that you're referring to the Globe and Mail article.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Somebody else is going to have to ask that question, because Mr. Bezan is out of time.
Ms. Lambropoulos, you have six minutes, please.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Minister, for being here with us today to answer some questions.
You spoke about a letter that had been signed by several members of different parties. Just to clarify, was this a letter from a parliamentary friendship group, or was it just a letter from MPs?
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
This was a letter that we have a copy of here, signed by 25 members of Parliament from three different parties.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
It was asking for the immigration department to create a specific pathway program to offer humanitarian assistance to six...in Afghanistan, as well as other minority communities. Is that correct?
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
It's in this letter here. If I could read it out, then I could tell you exactly who they were referring to. It was referring to the Sikhs and Hindus.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Thank you very much.
I'm wondering what the process was, at that point. I know that the Government of Canada had other minorities to include on that list. Can you include the full list of minorities who were to be evacuated if accepted by Canada? Once you have read that list, can you tell us what the process was for those people to get out?
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
Absolutely. First of all, it was the then minister of immigration who actually announced the program. On July 23, the special immigration measures pathway was announced. On August 13, it was expanded by the minister of immigration to include vulnerable groups, such as women leaders, human rights defenders, journalists, persecuted religious minorities, LGBTQI individuals, and family members of previously settled interpreters.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Okay, so if somebody had been given permission to come, what would the process have been at that point?
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
Obviously, the immigration department would have been handling the process. All of the names had to be approved. I remember that we had to vet all of the interpreters' names and who actually worked with us. Everything was sent to the immigration department so they could be added to the official list.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
How were they helped out, if they were on that official list?
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
First, before we could do the full evacuation....
They had the official list. Global Affairs Canada was working with Immigration to charter flights. They requested our support. I didn't get the details of that. The exact process would obviously have to be discussed with them. What I know is that they had the approved list. Anybody who was on that list was cleared to come to Canada, which included Afghan Sikhs and Hindus.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Okay. Thank you very much.
Could you describe the role you played during the evacuation a little more, so we can understand what role you played versus the role of the people on the ground?
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
As the minister, I was given the authority, through government policy, to support the evacuation. That was received from Global Affairs Canada on July 27. I then gave direction to the Canadian Armed Forces to support the airlift. At that time, I wasn't that involved.
However, once we had to evacuate all of our Canadian embassy personnel and pull out completely, because the Taliban had taken all of Kabul.... The work intensified on August 19, when we had to reinsert with the U.K. The U.S. came up with a plan to safely continue the evacuation.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Okay.
Regarding all the efforts on the ground, can you remind us who was in charge of getting the orders carried out and who was the one giving the orders on the ground?
Liberal
Harjit S. Sajjan Liberal Vancouver South, BC
That was a volatile situation.
In normal circumstances, once direction is given to the chief of the defence staff, orders are given to the chain of command, and they decide who is going to execute those orders.
In this case, the same process was followed, but we all had to be directly and closely involved right from the beginning, because we had to work with our allies. I was on calls with my counterparts, getting the mission sorted out and confirming which nations would be involved. The first nations were Canada, the U.K. and the U.S.
At the same time, the military was working on how to secure everything safely with their allied partners. We moved additional support into Kuwait at that time, in anticipation. Once we decided we could do it safely, direction was given to go back and secure the airport with our allies. Once we were on the ground.... At that time, we obviously left the actual operations to Canadian Armed Forces personnel.
We had to monitor the other situation very closely. For example, intelligence on threats was coming in. At the same time, we had to plan the evacuation, because the airport could be shut down at any time. We had to immediately start planning what that was going to look like.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
I have 20 seconds left, so there are no more questions.
Thank you very much for being here.
Liberal
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for being here.
How did you receive information about the location of the Sikh community's 225 members regarding the evacuation?
Was it by email, by text, by phone? How was the non-governmental organization communicating with you?