This August, American military and diplomatic forces left Afghanistan for the first time in 20 years. Within a few days, the Taliban, a terrorist organization, had reclaimed control of the country and the US-backed regime was falling, sparking a refugee and humanitarian crisis with global impact. Canada entered this conflict during the US-led invasion in 2001, committing military forces as part of a multinational coalition. However, Canada left the country in 2014, seven years before the Americans. In this period, 40,000 Canadian soldiers served in Afghanistan and 158 died. The Taliban, the new leaders of Afghanistan, have created unsafe conditions for humanitarians, activists, and allies of the NATO forces who still live in the country. The people who have fled the country have become refugees.. As a wealthy nation committed to defending human rights, and a participant in the events which have led to the state of instability in Afghanistan, some argue that Canada has a responsibility to help resettle some of these refugees. 

On July 22, 2021, as the US was making final preparations to evacuate the country, Canada’s federal government opened a special immigration program for “Afghans who assisted the government of Canada”. This allowed Afghan citizens and their families who had worked as interpreters or staff for Canadian military and diplomatic forces the opportunity to apply to resettle to Canada. In August 2021, a special humanitarian program opened for Afghan nationals who would be threatened by persecution  under Taliban rule and didn’t have any place to flee. Those eligible include activists, women who had been politically active, certain religious minorities, ethnic minorities, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and journalists, as well as the extended family of those included in the first special immigration program. This program would require refugees to be registered as such with UNHCR or their current host government, and then be referred into the Canadian program by UNHCR, NATO, the United States, Frontline Defenders, or ProtectDefenders.eu. Otherwise refugees would have to find sponsorships through private individuals or organizations. In total, these two policies were designed to bring 20,000 Afghan refugees to Canada. As of August 30, 2021, 44% of Canadians thought that 20,000 was “about the right number”, while almost equal amounts felt that 20,000 was too few or too many (25% and 21%, respectively). Following the reelection of a Liberal government in September, Trudeau’s Foreign Minister, Marc Garneau, announced in a UN speech that Canada would be doubling its original commitment by attempting to resettle 40,000 Afghan refugees. Garneau said, “Canadians have once again shown their openness to those who do not wish to live under Taliban rule but prefer to stand up for democracy, human rights, and gender equality . . . Canadians overwhelmingly called on us to do more.” 

This updated goal is more similar in scale to previous Trudeau administration policy regarding the Syrian refugee crisis, which successfully resettled 39,636 Syrian nationals in Canada between 2015 and 2016. There is no current timeline on bringing Afghan refugees to Canada, but considering that an application can take up to four months to approve, Afghan nationals could be arriving as early as this winter. The UNHCR estimates that there are currently 6 million Afghan refugees worldwide, with 635,000 displaced in 2021 alone -- mostly dispossessed within Afghanistan, or registered as a refugee in neighboring countries of Pakistan or Iran. The Biden Administration, leading a divided United States, is planning to resettle 95,000 Afghan nationals by September 2022. According to an Al-Jazeera report, only the UK has made similar commitments, promising to accept 20,000 Afghan nationals over the next several years. Other countries, particularly Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey, have been overwhelmed by asylum seekers from the region, and are unable (or unwilling) to help. Canada has committed to accepting more refugees from any besides the United States - but in context of the scale of the crisis, will it be enough?