Juno News - Conservatives say Canadian government needs to ramp up Afghanistan response

00:00:00.000 I do want to spend some time talking about Afghanistan here which has been one of the

00:00:10.120 bigger election issues just because the election was called in the midst of this crisis which is

00:00:14.460 both a military and a humanitarian crisis. The Conservatives, a bunch of MPs or not MPs rather

00:00:21.800 candidates, did a press conference the other day in which they talked about their plan and the

00:00:26.260 Conservatives have pushed for the Liberals to suspend their campaign at least the Liberals who

00:00:31.240 have cabinet portfolios tied to what's happening in Afghanistan and I wanted to expand on that a bit

00:00:37.900 because Alex Ruff who is a Canadian Armed Forces veteran himself who served in Afghanistan had some

00:00:44.120 very interesting thoughts about the mission itself and about where we are as a country and I wanted to

00:00:51.380 extrapolate on some of those with Alex Ruff the Conservative candidate seeking re-election

00:00:56.240 in Bruce Gray-Owen Sound. I was going to say the MP you're not the MP anymore with Parliament having

00:01:01.200 been dissolved. Alex good to have you on the show thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me Andrew.

00:01:06.100 Now before serving as a Member of Parliament you served in Afghanistan in the Canadian Armed Forces

00:01:12.080 just before we get into what's happening now and how the government could or should be responding

00:01:17.640 how has it been for you as someone who spent time there as part of the coalition seeing all of this

00:01:23.920 work over the last 20 years just being unraveled in the span of a few weeks? Well that's a tough

00:01:29.940 question Andrew and I've been getting lots of feedback from colleagues of mine and even people

00:01:35.660 still in uniform and it's tough it's disappointing it makes you kind of question sometimes hey could I've

00:01:42.440 done something differently could the whole coalition have done something differently to address

00:01:47.400 the challenges that Afghanistan has faced and now will face going into the future. I'm still a bit

00:01:54.280 of a glass half full not right now with the you know sort of the lack of action on getting those

00:02:00.800 Afghans out that need to be brought out and that are fleeing for their lives but just from the fact that 1.00

00:02:08.300 we did the coalition Canada in particular we spent you know the better part of a decade 15 years there

00:02:14.360 the coalition writ large almost 20 years and we've educated and help educate a generation and this is a

00:02:23.120 generational sort of change that's the the challenge with any counterinsurgency and the sort of full

00:02:29.780 spectrum operations that occur today in today's contemporary operating environment and if you don't

00:02:35.240 understand that and understand that really ultimately the the solution for Afghanistan has to come from the

00:02:41.920 Afghans themselves and that is through a long process I'm still optimistic there's a whole generation

00:02:47.820 that now realize that they can have more and ultimately you never know one of those young girls 0.60

00:02:53.900 that was educated and got educated due to the impact and influence that we had historically us can't as

00:03:01.640 Canadian as Canadians and as the coalition I think that there is a potential there that maybe one of them

00:03:07.060 will be you know back down the road to future prime minister of Afghanistan and that the country

00:03:11.660 eventually will come out of this but unfortunately right now they are going through some very tough

00:03:16.960 days and I think you know we now have to do our part in particular to help those that helped us when

00:03:24.000 we needed help to you know help them. And you are right to point out there are two aspects of this

00:03:30.180 there's the what do we do long term about the Taliban we know that we've been down this road in part

00:03:35.560 before with the Taliban running the show and and then being ousted and having a democratic government

00:03:41.060 replace it and then there's also the here and now and those images of people just you know clinging on

00:03:46.940 to the wheel of an airplane taking off and falling I think will be burned into all of our memories for

00:03:52.460 generations to come. You mentioned the the Afghans that helped Canada and I'm having trouble with this 1.00

00:03:58.380 because Justin Drew has said that the government's on top of it they're all getting ex they're all getting

00:04:03.160 evacuated from the region I mean what's the breakdown here what isn't happening that we're being told is

00:04:09.000 happening? Well so part of the challenge is you know the lack of transparency and just how much

00:04:15.040 information is being put out there because what we're hearing from people and colleagues and

00:04:19.360 connections right into Afghanistan is that they have no way to communicate and get their names and

00:04:24.940 there's lists and their names of people that and Afghans on the ground and Canadian citizens I know of

00:04:30.160 Canadian citizens that are on the ground there that are hunkered down and having that same problem of

00:04:34.740 getting in contact with the appropriate Canadian authorities with the embassy etc so that they can

00:04:40.820 actually find their way and get to that safe location and link up to get evacuated. I know the government does

00:04:48.160 have stuff ongoing but the problem right now is that lack of communication and that ability to get that

00:04:54.060 clarity and information to those on the ground that need to get out and you know this is right goes back

00:05:00.880 to last week when they made that announcement I was happy to hear that they're planning on getting

00:05:04.660 20,000 Afghans out and I think Trudeau's even mentioned up to 21,000 now but I raised this concern over

00:05:11.860 a month ago in the public through a statement through you know a letter to a national paper saying look

00:05:19.820 you have a very short window to do this anybody that saw this coming knew that you only have a couple

00:05:25.760 weeks and now we're the Taliban have capitalized on the U.S. withdrawal they're now in Kabul they've

00:05:33.620 successfully seized so many of the key crossing and border points so it's going to require even more

00:05:38.760 effort now to get these people out than if they if we would have taken action sooner. This may be a

00:05:45.060 difficult question to answer but I'm curious at what point you think that window closes and it

00:05:50.380 becomes too risky to put Canadian soldiers over there I know they're very well trained I know that

00:05:56.260 the U.S. is still controlling the airport for the time being but but at what point is it too risky to

00:06:01.560 do all of these things we need to do? I can't honestly answer that without access to you know what I

00:06:07.500 would have had when I was still in uniform you know the intelligence sources the information on the

00:06:11.420 ground but ultimately I think that the final deadline is September 11th that's what from

00:06:17.040 what I understand the U.S. has indicated that they intend to have every one of their forces out of

00:06:21.840 Afghanistan so it's tied to our coalition partners it's tied to our allies and what they can do but

00:06:28.040 ultimately our Canadian Armed Forces are well trained as you mentioned we they are prepared to do this

00:06:33.020 and ultimately you don't make any decision from a foreign policy or a national defense perspective

00:06:39.420 without some level of risk but every soldier sailor air crew in the Canadian Armed Forces

00:06:45.720 knows that we signed up for that it's a voluntary military here in Canada and we knew right from the

00:06:53.620 you know that's what makes our service personnel unique is they they're willing to make that supreme

00:06:58.920 sacrifice if they have to to do the right thing and what our government decides to do for us as

00:07:04.880 military personnel so ultimately I can't speak to the exact timeline I just know that window is closing

00:07:11.880 very very quickly and the Taliban aren't an organization they're a terrorist group that will

00:07:18.960 not respect the rules of law and the international rules of law they're not afraid they're killing people

00:07:24.560 they'll hunt them down and commit terrible crimes if we don't get these people out immediately

00:07:30.340 obviously it's the U.S. that's driving the withdrawal and the U.S. withdrawal that's triggered a lot of this

00:07:36.420 but but I'm curious where you think Canada could have played a role if it could have in mitigating

00:07:41.540 some of the damage up until now you mean with respect to getting these people out yes yeah well so as soon

00:07:48.860 as the U.S. had indicated that withdrawal was coming months ago I can't remember whether it was February

00:07:54.680 March or when they had indicated under President Biden that they were going to do this that's when

00:07:59.700 the government should have clued in right up right off the get-go because we have phenomenal planners

00:08:05.580 I've worked in our Canadian Joint Operations Command in the planning team there they they could have spun

00:08:11.720 this up in no time flat and started putting these programs in place to help getting these people out

00:08:17.920 because you know it just you should have we were tied to that September 11th deadline so they should

00:08:24.280 have been able to hey here's the drop dead date what's their background what are those triggers

00:08:28.540 in a planning process that go oh geez Taliban have now seized this all right well this speeds up the

00:08:35.560 timeline so the planning could have all been easily done if the will was there but ultimately Canadian

00:08:41.100 Armed Forces follows the direction that they get from our elected officials we have it's up to the

00:08:45.920 government to provide that direction and then the military will provide options I don't like

00:08:51.600 politicizing something that should be a very unified issue and I believe that genuinely speaking

00:08:57.880 liberal candidates conservative candidates NDP candidates all want what's best for Canadians and

00:09:03.420 Afghans here but I do have to question a bit about the the amount of attention that's being given to

00:09:08.400 this because we have Justin Trudeau on the campaign trail I know that the acting chief of the defense

00:09:13.160 staff is also in Hawaii for a conference with other chiefs of the defense staff this week have you

00:09:18.440 gotten the sense that this is being made a priority by some part of the government or some part of the

00:09:24.620 armed forces I can't speak for the armed forces obviously I'm not in and I try especially right now

00:09:31.460 and everything going on I don't want to put any other you know for my personal connections at risk for

00:09:36.260 for anything that's politically tied but I mean it's no different than the statement that myself and

00:09:41.500 Michael Chong put out the other day you know saying look the minister of national defense immigration

00:09:47.880 foreign affairs they should all be you know stopping ceasing their campaigning right now and focused on

00:09:54.740 getting making sure their efforts done on this you know and getting this out and I mean I think that is

00:09:59.900 the only real political consideration is when this crisis became so evident you know in the last couple

00:10:06.640 weeks it does question why the prime minister why Trudeau decided to call an election when I think

00:10:13.720 personally he could have held off on that decision if he was still set on calling this this election

00:10:18.700 that's fine and dandy but at least get this piece of it done first and foremost to make sure that

00:10:23.980 guidance was going out there and that the focus by the ministers was on dealing with this

00:10:29.840 international humanitarian crisis that to me is more important than any election Canadians aren't

00:10:36.980 going to remember who won or lost an election necessarily or that you know that mp themselves

00:10:42.740 or that candidate as much as they're going to remember whether they did the right thing or not

00:10:46.980 in helping prevent this crisis and right now's you know these ministers have that ability to

00:10:54.780 influence this and focus on this more than just getting re-elected Alex Ruff conservative candidate

00:11:00.920 for Bruce Gray Owen Sound thanks very much for your time thank you Andrew that was Canadian Armed Forces

00:11:07.440 Afghanistan veteran and conservative candidate in Bruce Gray Owen Sound Alex Ruff my thanks to Alex

00:11:13.420 for coming on the show we will have lots of different candidates from different parties in the shows to

00:11:18.460 come over the next few weeks so fear not we will hopefully get to some of those who have unique

00:11:23.960 stories or unique angles on issues we obviously aren't able to cover every candidate from every

00:11:28.720 party in each of the 338 ridings but we want candidates of interest ridings of interest and

00:11:34.640 issues of interest where a candidate has some expertise to speak on it like in the case of Alex Ruff

00:11:40.060 and Afghanistan thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton show support the program by donating to

00:11:44.960 true north at www.tnc.news

00:11:55.540 you

Juno News - August 21, 2021

Conservatives say Canadian government needs to ramp up Afghanistan response

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