THUNDER BAY — A retired member of the Canadian military is speaking out in frustration about the the plight of Afghans threatened by the takeover of their country by the Taliban.
Robin Rickards of Thunder Bay has lobbied for years to get Canada to take in Afghan interpreters and others who helped Canadian forces during their mission between 2001 and 2014.
The capital city, Kabul, fell to the Taliban on the weekend, forcing the president to flee and putting civilians who helped Canada and allied countries in peril.
Rickards maintains "There was time to avoid the disaster and the chaos that's about to envelop those people."
In an interview Monday, he said many more Canadian troops would have died without the help they received, including from Afghans who maintained the sewage treatment plants, water systems and other infrastructure.
Now these same people, he said are "trying to calm their children, and lie to them, and tell them that things are going to be okay when they're not going to be okay."
Prime Minister Trudeau has said Canada plans to resettle up to 20,000 Afghans under a new immigration program.
Trudeau said Monday that 807 people including interpreters, other support workers and their families have already been flown out of Afghanistan, and that Canada is working with the U.S., the U.K. and international aid organizations to bring others to safety.
Rickards, however, feels the government failed to come up with an appropriate plan when it was needed much earlier "because it's not part of its agenda...they've never prioritized it...there's an unwillingness to deal with this because it is work."
He reiterated that he was pleased with the support he received from Thunder Bay - Rainy River MP Marcus Powlowski and from his predecessor, Don Rusnak, who he said took the issue seriously and advocated for it, "but they are backbench MPs."
Rickards was a corporal with the Lake Superior Scottish Regiment and got to know many Afghans during his three tours of duty between 2006 and 2010.
What he's hearing from them now is "panic," he said, because of the Taliban victory over the Afghan government.
"A lot of the trust that these folks had in us is shattered... I've got three good friends that were sort of the aegis of this effort, and I've been trying to get them over. They're still stuck in Kabul."
News reports on Monday described a chaotic scene at the capital city's airport, when people crowded the runway and tried to force themselves onto planes leaving the country.
The airport is under the control of the U.S. military.
However, Rickards predicted that the Taliban will start shooting people outside the airport to clear it, allowing the Americans to withdraw their troops and equipment.
Then, "Everyone that worked with us will be left behind. It is coming to a conclusion," he said.
He added that he's in communication with a woman who worked with Doctors Without Borders.
"She's gonna be trapped there. God forbid they discover she worked for them. She'll be lucky to survive. If not she'll be forced into marriage with a Taliban fighter. That's her fear."
Rickards said an Afghan friend on Sunday witnessed two workers trying to leave the country shot to death right in front of him by the Taliban.
On the campaign trail in Quebec on Monday, reporters asked Trudeau multiple questions about the status of the government's plan.
He said his ministers of foreign affairs, defense and immigration are continuing to work on it, and that the government is committed to resettle thousands of Afghans "in the coming weeks."
In defending the government's handling of the situation, Trudeau said people around the world "have been dismayed by the speed at which things have happened" on the ground in Afghanistan.
He added "we have to recognize the situation is extremely fluid right now, and extremely dangerous."
