Gone skiing

I know the dates were before July 15, of this year. 

We headed to cottage country July 15 and our morning radio patterns changed completely for the five weeks we were away.

So it was before that

The stories about our interpreters and colleagues and families here in Canada trying  to be unified came before July 15th

This date I know.

We still listen to the CBC in the mornings.  Metro Morning and The Current.. and often I stay around to list to Tom Powers.

It was on theses shows that I started to hear about our Afghan interpreters  trying to immigrate to Canada.

The stories kept up all spring and into summer.. .

There was an interview with a woman journalist who we had trained in Canada, trying to leave and come to Canada

There were several interviews with Afghan refugees already here in Canada trying to get their families outs to join them. 

There was a story from a Canadian foreign service retiree telling us about her many friends from the Embassy locally engaged staff trying to come with their families to Canada. 

The word from Ottawa was always “we are working on it.”

Interview after interview all spring and into summer

And the word from Ottawa was still the same

“We are concerned and we are working on it”

Only we weren’t 

We were sending emails with forms to be filled, and returned in French or English, and no matter if your province if Afghanistan has called to to the Taliban.and your internet did not work any more. 

No we weren’t really working on it. 

No We were fiddling and hemming and hawing

As spring moved into summer, the interviewss on the radio go more urgent.  You could hear it in the voices. 

Our Canadian military veterans were now practically begging on my morning radio all through June to bring their interpreters and families to Canada.

“We have not got much time” they all said. 

THe poor military did their best at the end, when they were finally allowed to go in and try to save the few they could .

When they came back to Ottawa this week, our poor Military, their ashes faces said it all. 

They said ” We have left our friends behind.”

You could see it yesterday on the faces of the CBC television journalists when they were talking about their journalists they had help train and had promised to help, many of them women

They knew this simple fact. 

The truth is Canada lied.

 There were enough of us around to know that things were going awry in Afghanistan that we had to move this spring and early summer.

THe public broadcaster was telling us each and every week, with one person after another. 

This much is true. 

We did not come for you as promised. 

We left our friends behind. 

And all those journalists that could not wait six years ago to take a selfie with the new Prime Ministers six years ago??

They know it too 

This is not a US problem . 

This is our problem 

Canada lied