Trudeau’s Afghanistan legacy

Failures show how little Canada stands for now

It’s done. The Canadian mission to extract interpreters, journalists, activists, support staff, refugees, and other Afghans who’ve risked their lives to help us over the years is over before it barely began. While more than 2,700 people were flown out of Afghanistan on Canadian flights, thousands of others remain under the control of one of the world’s most oppressive and brutal regimes.

The sentiment expressed over and over again to media from military and government sources: it didn’t have to be this way. We could’ve done more; been better. If only our highest levels of government, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, cared a little bit more.

Trudeau will say he cares. He’ll talk about being good global citizens, the rights of women and LGBTQ communities, and how we’ve resettled close to 60,000 Syrian refugees since 2016 — although he’ll conveniently forget to mention Germany, Sweden, Austria, Turkey, Lebanon, and others accepted many more. When the chance finally arrived to prove his moral grandstanding is more than a cynical act, to finally prove all the skeptics wrong, where was our head of state? MIA on the campaign trail.

In Trudeauland, doing the right thing is nice, but only if it doesn’t get in the way of pursuing more power. It’d be downright dandy to help — at bare minimum — those Afghans who helped us, but too bad the Taliban couldn’t wait to take Kabul at a more favourable time for the Liberals.

Instead, while other world leaders focused their attention on Afghanistan, Canada’s leaders hit the campaign trail. While U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson recalled his parliament to address the crisis, Trudeau asked Governor General Mary Simon to dissolve ours.

While there were clearly issues outside our government’s control in Afghanistan, the most frequently cited hurdle was Canada’s signature toxic combo of incompetent bureaucracy, endless red tape, and lack of preparedness for anything but the most ideal circumstances.

As other countries flew out packed-to-the-brim flights, Canada wondered whether we should limit our number of passengers to the number of seatbelts. There were problems with visas and other documentation that ranged from there being none to them being hopelessly confusing and overburdensome. There were mixed messages — when there were messages from Ottawa at all. Oh and we neglected to train the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) to refuel their expensive planes mid-air, which is one of the main reasons to have said expensive planes.

It sure would’ve been nice to have a strong leader crack the whip, get warring or non communicative bureaucratic factions in order, and oversee a detailed plan with clear messaging. We lacked this before and after Kabul fell, despite the writing being on the wall for weeks, if not months.

It’s difficult to believe this wasn’t because our prime minister, his cabinet ministers, every other MP, and their staff weren’t hurriedly prepping and then campaigning for a snap election. Elections are exhausting at the best of times; during an acute crisis they can be dangerous and, in this case, deadly distractions.

Now, humanitarian organizations like Amnesty International are begging Canada to work with our allies to extend the evacuation deadline.

“Every effort must now be made to safely evacuate Afghans who fear revenge attacks by the Taliban and have to leave the country. To fail them would be an unforgivable betrayal,” wrote Agnès Callamard, NGO’S secretary general, in a statement emailed to press Thursday morning.

That very same day, Trudeau wasn’t huddled in a war room or on the phone with other G7 leaders, he was in Quebec City announcing a guaranteed income supplement for seniors. Meanwhile, any pretence of a new and improved Taliban is finished as women are told to stay home, reports of door-to-door searches continue, and the number of deaths — often under grisly circumstances — rises.

Not for one single day has Trudeau been able to say he’s given the crisis his full attention. Undoubtedly some will claim he’s focused on a “pivotal” time for Canada, but the Afghan crisis itself represents a pivotal time for Canada. We’ve had a frontrow seat to the blowback western nations face when their operations in foreign countries go wrong, leaving behind an angry, bitter, and even vengeful populace. How we treat Afghans now will have future consequences.

Canada is a nation that once stood for doing the right thing. We didn’t always get it right, but at least we usually tried. Now, under Trudeau’s leadership, we’re simply a country obsessed with saying the right things. Worse, we make promises we can’t keep and, if you ever need our help, you’d better hope it’s at a politically expedient time for the ruling Liberals. Otherwise, don’t expect Canada to show up.

NOW ... WE’RE SIMPLY A COUNTRY OBSESSED WITH SAYING THE RIGHT THINGS.