Afghan Sikh sponsors donated to Sajjan’s riding association during Kabul airlift campaign

Directors of a charitable foundation that struck a deal with Ottawa to sponsor the immigration of Afghan Sikhs to Canada made political donations to then-defence minister Harjit Sajjan’s Vancouver South Liberal riding association around the same time as Canadian special forces soldiers were instructed to rescue and airlift the group from Kabul.

Elections Canada records show that between them, these directors made thousands of dollars of personal donations to the Liberal Vancouver South Liberal riding association in August 2021. Canada was in the midst of a general election campaign that had begun August 16 and Mr. Sajjan was seeking re-election in the Vancouver South riding.

These records raise more questions about the connection between Mr. Sajjan and the non-profit charity that had pressed Mr. Sajjan and the government to try to rescue a group of 225 Afghan Sikhs during final evacuation flights from Kabul as the Taliban cemented its control over Afghanistan.

As the Globe and Mail reported last week, Mr. Sajjan instructed Canadian special forces to rescue about 225 Afghan Sikhs after the Taliban takeover in August, 2021, in an operation that three military sources say took resources away from getting Canadian citizens and Afghans linked to Canada on final evacuation flights.

Elections Canada records show that Tarjinder Bhullar, a director of the Manmeet Singh Bhullar Charitable Foundation, made a $510 donation to the riding association. Her donation was received Aug. 19, 2021. The contributor address and the postal code are the same as that of the address used by the foundation in the federal corporate registry.

Two other donations – each totalling $1,000 – were recorded with the same postal code and contributor address as Ms. Bhullar’s came from Baljinder Bhullar and Apharnarayan Bhullar. These names match two other directors of the foundation according to the federal corporate registry. Their donations were received Aug. 22, 2021.

Finally, a donation of $1,650 from Namrita Rattan was received August 27, 2021, according to Elections Canada. This name matches that of a fourth foundation director who was also the wife of Manmeet Bhullar. Mr. Bhullar, a former provincial cabinet minister in Alberta, died in 2015. This donation was received Aug. 27, 2021.

Canada’s airlift efforts ended on August 27, the day after the rescue mission failed when the Sikhs became nervous and left the rendezvous within a half hour of Canadian troops arriving. The group later managed to get to India.

Neither Mr. Sajjan’s office nor Ms. Bhullhar and the foundation were immediately available to provide comment to questions from The Globe about the donations and the actions carried out by the minister to help them.

The Globe and Mail reported last month that military sources who were in Ottawa and on the ground in Kabul painted a picture of the final chaotic, dangerous and desperate hours as evacuation flights were ending and Canada and other Western countries scrambled to get their citizens safely out of Afghanistan by the U.S. withdrawal deadline at the end of August.

The sources said Afghan Sikhs were not considered an operational priority for the Canadian military as they had no link to Canada. Mr. Sajjan’s intervention, the sources say, impacted the rescue of Canadians and other Afghans on Canada’s priority list. The Globe and Mail did not identify the three sources because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

Mr. Sajjan, now the Emergency Preparedness Minister, has rejected the notion that anything he said regarding the Afghan Sikhs amounted to an order and said he did not request that they be given priority over Canadians, Afghan interpreters or others who had aided Canada during its long mission in the Central Asian country.

Further, he noted Immigration Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) had cleared these Sikhs to come to Canada. “I provided direction to the Canadian Armed Forces, through the appropriate chain of command, to assist the group of Afghan Sikhs who had been determined eligible for evacuation from Kabul through the process under way at IRCC,” Mr. Sajjan said last week.

However on Friday, General Wayne Eyre, Chief of the Defence Staff, told The Canadian Press that the military was following “legal orders” from Mr. Sajjan when it made an effort to specifically help the group of Afghan Sikhs.

Elections Canada’s online records only go back 10 years to 2014 but there is no record of Tarjinder Bhullar or Apharnarayan Bhullar or Namrita Rattan making any donations to any other recipient as far back as July 1, 2014.

Political donation records show that a Baljinder Bhullar with the same postal code and address as the Sajjan donation made a contribution of $400 in 2019 to Tim Uppal, the Alberta MP who is now deputy leader of the Conservative Party.