Former defence minister Harjit Sajjan has told The Globe that he directed Canadian special forces to rescue 225 Afghan Sikhs but insisted that was not an order.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
The House of Commons committee on national defence plans to investigate the actions of former defence minister Harjit Sajjan, after military sources said he undermined the 2021 mission to get Canadians and Afghans linked to Canada out of Kabul by instructing special forces to rescue a group of Afghan Sikhs.
The Globe and Mail reported in June that the sources, both in Ottawa and on the ground in Kabul, were upset by Mr. Sajjan’s intervention during the chaos of the Taliban takeover as Western evacuation flights were ending before the U.S. withdrawal deadline at the end of August, 2021.
Sajjan instructed special forces to rescue Afghan Sikhs during fall of Kabul
The sources said Afghan Sikhs were not considered an operational priority for the Canadian military because they had no link to Canada. Mr. Sajjan’s intervention, they said, affected the rescue of Canadians and other Afghans on Canada’s priority list. The Globe did not identify the three sources because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
“We learned through The Globe and Mail that the minister might have provided some directives to prioritize the evacuation of Afghans of the Sikh faith to the detriment of Canadians,” Bloc Québécois MP Christine Normandin told the committee Thursday. “Certain individuals, including [former Canadian military] interpreters, were left behind because the resources to evacuate people were limited.”
Ms. Normandin moved a motion, adopted unanimously, to call Mr. Sajjan, top military officers and senior officials at the department of Global Affairs to testify.
Globe editorial: Harjit Sajjan failed Canada, and Canadians
Mr. Sajjan, now the Emergency Preparedness Minister, has told The Globe that he directed Canadian special forces to rescue 225 Afghan Sikhs but insisted that was not an order. He also confirmed that he relayed information and other details about the Sikhs to the military as elite soldiers worked to meet up with the group near Kabul International Airport.
Mr. Sajjan later said that his directive was in line with government policy to help vulnerable groups on the ground in Afghanistan.
General Wayne Eyre, who was chief of the defence staff until his retirement in June, has said that the military was following “legal orders” when it tried to rescue this group of Afghan Sikhs during the fall of Kabul. He added that it’s not up to him to say “whether the government priority was right or wrong.”
When Kabul fell to the Taliban, Canada and its allies scrambled to evacuate primarily their citizens, along with Afghan military and diplomatic interpreters who had worked for them.
Ottawa did have a third priority list for Canada that included groups at risk of persecution, including feminists, human-rights defenders, journalists and religious minorities.
In a lengthy statement in June, Mr. Sajjan said he “provided direction to the Canadian Armed Forces, through the appropriate chain of command, to assist the group of Afghan Sikhs.”
However, he also acknowledged that Canadian Sikh groups, such as the Calgary-based Manmeet Singh Bhullar Foundation, “reached out to me personally” as the situation worsened in Afghanistan, telling him that it was unable to connect with the military directly.
On Aug. 26, the day before Canadian flights out of Kabul ended, Mr. Sajjan was personally involved in providing details of the Afghan Sikhs to special forces, seeking to bring them to the airport. The rescue operation failed when the group became frightened and left the rendezvous point shortly before Canadian soldiers arrived.
Mr. Sajjan said that he did not instruct the forces to prioritize this group above Canadians or Afghan interpreters who aided Canadian soldiers during previous operations.
Afghan Sikh sponsors donated to Sajjan’s riding association during Kabul airlift campaign
The military sources told The Globe that they felt Mr. Sajjan was out of line in asking Canadian special forces to rescue the Afghan Sikhs. The operation involved intense planning, they said, and it meant fewer soldiers were available to screen people awaiting the last flights out of Kabul.
One of the sources said the change of mission to rescue these Sikhs became a logistical nightmare at the same time that the military was trying desperately to process Canadians with passports as thousands of people converged on the airport to escape.
In July, The Globe also reported that directors of the Manmeet Singh Bhullar Foundation, who had struck a deal with Ottawa to sponsor some Afghan Sikhs, made political donations to Mr. Sajjan. Those donations to his Vancouver-area riding association were around the same time that Mr. Sajjan instructed special forces soldiers to rescue the group.
Elections Canada records show that directors made thousands of dollars of personal donations to Mr. Sajjan’s Vancouver South Liberal riding association in August, 2021. Canada was in the midst of a general election campaign that had started Aug. 16 and Mr. Sajjan was seeking re-election in the riding.