Canadian Opposition parties on Monday sought the dismissal of Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan, a Sikh of Indian origin accused of overstating his role in the country’s biggest offensive in Afghanistan against the Taliban in 2006, Channel NewsAsia reported. During a trip to India last month, Sajjan had described himself as the “architect” of Operation Medusa, which had helped liberate Afghanistan’s Kandahar province from the Taliban eleven years ago.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, however, stood by his minister even as Opposition MPs accused him of basking in “stolen valour”. Sajjan, who has apologised on Twitter and Facebook, again admitted in the House of Commons that his claim was inflated.
Interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose accused the defence minister of stealing credit for the actions of others and said, “How much more does the prime minister need to hear before he understands why our men and women in uniform have lost confidence in the minister?” Tom Mulcair, leader of the New Democratic Party, described Sajjan’s claim as a “whopper” of a lie. “That is not something you apologise for, it is something you have to step down for,” he said, accoring to The Globe and Mail.
Trudeau defended Sajjan and said, “The minister made a mistake. He acknowledged it and apologised for it. That’s what Canadians expect...This minister has served his country in many capacities – as a police officer, as a soldier, and now as a minister. He has my full confidence.”
Sajjan, in his apology on Monday, said, “I would like to apologise for my mistake in describing my role [in the Afghanistan offensive] and retract that statement, and I’m truly sorry for it. I, in no way, intended to diminish the great work that our men and women in the Canadian Armed Forces have done.”
The decorated former military intelligence officer had made the inflammatory statement in New Delhi, where he arrived on April 18. His visit to India had already been mired in controversy after Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had called him a “Khalistani sympathiser” and had refused to meet him.
“On my first deployment to Kandahar in 2006, I was the architect of Operation Medusa, where we removed 1,500 Taliban fighters off the battlefield....and I was proudly on the main assault,” Sajjan had said. Once his error was called out, he tweeted an apology, followed by a longer explanation on Facebook.
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