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Afghanistan committee I can jump in quickly.
February 14th, 2022Committee meeting
MGen (Ret'd) David Fraser
Afghanistan committee We've made all those recommendations. We said we would work with the government on options on how to do that. Fundamentally we agreed that nobody should come into this country who shouldn't be here. You waive it at that end and you isolate them and then you do all the necessary biometrics and due diligence so we get the right people here.
February 14th, 2022Committee meeting
MGen (Ret'd) David Fraser
Afghanistan committee Yes. We can come up with all the letters and recommendations, because we still talk to IRCC and Global Affairs on a weekly basis, when we make all these recommendations. When the interdepartmental task force was up and running, we gave them the same recommendations.
February 14th, 2022Committee meeting
MGen (Ret'd) David Fraser
Afghanistan committee We've recommended to the government to be as inclusive as possible. The criteria that the IRCC and the policy have right now are fairly broad. It gets kind of iffy when you talk about human rights. However, for journalists, women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ, cultural advisers, interpreters and cooks, there are enough conditions there that we can probably get them here.
February 14th, 2022Committee meeting
MGen (Ret'd) David Fraser
Afghanistan committee The first thing I would ask is what the plan is. What is the plan to get the 40,000 Afghans to this country? When is that plan going to be executed? What are the monthly metrics of how many people you want to have coming out of Afghanistan to come to this country? If biometrics is such a hard thing, we have some of the greatest technology companies in the world in this country.
February 14th, 2022Committee meeting
MGen (Ret'd) David Fraser
Afghanistan committee To put it simply, it's all of the above. Canada was a world leader during the combat mission when we were there. We created a super deputy minister and we had an interdepartmental task force that actually harnessed the power of a whole-of-government team. It actually brought tremendous strategic credit to this nation.
February 14th, 2022Committee meeting
MGen (Ret'd) David Fraser
Afghanistan committee Is that open to any one of us?
February 14th, 2022Committee meeting
MGen (Ret'd) David Fraser
Afghanistan committee The short answer is, yes, we saw this coming. If three retired generals without access to intelligence saw this coming in July, there could have been a lot more people evacuated out of Afghanistan before Kandahar fell and before Kabul fell. This is, again, on the shoulders of Canadians, and I don't mean just the military.
February 14th, 2022Committee meeting
MGen (Ret'd) David Fraser
Afghanistan committee Please, Mr. Chair, if I could, I would like to continue. I've listened to you people talk for this long, and I will ask if you can just allow me as a witness to provide you the information that this committee has asked me and my fellow people to give you so that we can inform Canadians about a humanitarian crisis that this country is not picking up and lifting its weight on.
February 14th, 2022Committee meeting
MGen (Ret'd) David Fraser
Afghanistan committee Mr. Chair, since Dean Milner and I wrote the letter together and we have prepared the written statement, which you have, I could finish my statement if that is acceptable to you and the rest of the members.
February 14th, 2022Committee meeting
MGen (Ret'd) David Fraser
Afghanistan committee Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for the opportunity to talk to you this evening. I am retired Major-General Fraser. I spent 32 years in the Canadian Armed Forces and participated in numerous missions, including as commander, regional command south under the U.S.
February 14th, 2022Committee meeting
Major-General
Afghanistan committee Throughout my experience, operating in any mission was difficult because of a number of factors. The security threat is always paramount; however, it is compounded by language and culture. Afghanistan was one of the most complex missions Canada has ever engaged in. Nowhere were we more dependent on interpreters and cultural advisers than we were in Afghanistan.
February 14th, 2022Committee meeting
MGen (Ret'd) David Fraser