By Amanda Moddejonge
Thunder Bay – POLITICS – Candidate’s Ledger – Trudeau’s statement that Canada is prepared to stay in Afghanistan overall demonstrates his inability to understand this issue and appropriately react. It is as inappropriate as his statement that he will not recognize the Taliban as the government in this country.
Amanda Moddejonge is the Green Party candidate in Thunder Bay-Superior North
The Taliban are the new government of the country, and we all might as well accept this. If he wants to be the purveyor of change or any goodness to the people of Afghanistan the only way he can do this is through diplomatic relations. His assertation that he is not going to recognize this is as effective as a four year old screaming “you’re not my real mother anyway” to the woman that gave them birth and cared for them since. While rooted in anger and disgust, these sentiments are not very likely to have a positive effect on any situation.
Trudeau cannot commit to staying in Afghanistan unless there are troops from other countries on the ground as well. This means specifically US troops. If President Biden is firm on withdrawing US troops Canada simply will not be able to. It currently does not appear as though this is happening.
The only other way that this would be possible is if Canada has a diplomatic relationship with Afghanistan. This means a diplomatic relationship with the Taliban. As much as it is painful and distasteful, if Canada is serious about staying in Afghanistan past the US withdraw, we would need a strong diplomatic relationship with this country to do so. We currently don’t even have an embassy in Afghanistan, and our sitting Prime Minster has stated he refuses to establish this relationship.
Many of the people that are trying to flee are doing so because they took a job. The ones that Veterans in Canada are trying to help are doing so because the job they took was to help Canadian missions in their country. Many of them took these jobs as children, straight out of school with the hopes that the money that they made would support their families. Nobody deserves to be hunted for choices they made as a child. They certainly do not deserve to be shot at for helping Canadians in their work.
If Trudeau was serious about helping the people of Afghanistan and Canadians currently stuck in that country he would have called an emergency Cabinet meeting instead of an election. While he was telling the people of Canada that we were going to the polls for an election we don’t want, Afghani people were being shot at by the Taliban at the airport for trying to leave their country.
Trudeau has promised to help relocate 20,000 Afghan Refugees in Canada. If there is no plan to get these people out of the country this will be simply another hollow promise. Other countries with citizens in Afghanistan and a responsibility to those who worked on their missions have undertaken such tactics to get those people to the Kabul airport by bus. These busses are protected and escorted by the Taliban. While working with the Taliban is repugnant to those who do not support them it is critical if we are to be effective in our own responsibilities to our citizens and those who supported our troops. Canadians currently have no such plan. Instead, people are wading through wastewater to approach the airport, and for another day they are again being sent away by the troops that are posted there. It appears as though we don’t even have good enough diplomatic relations with our allied forces to even get the people we need to protect through a gate.
