Loved ones waiting with flowers, balloons and open arms tearfully embraced Canadian travellers as they arrived in Toronto’s Pearson airport on Saturday as more Canadians flee the Middle East.
Passengers who arrived from Dubai expressed relief to be back on Canadian soil, as well as frustration with the U.S. attack on Iran and the Canadian government’s response so far evacuating citizens from the region as the war reaches the one-week mark.
Camille Brown, who touched down in Toronto with her husband and three young children, said the last week has been traumatizing for her family as Iran sent missiles and drones into the United Arab Emirates as part of retaliatory strikes targeting U.S. military infrastructure.
Brown, a Toronto resident who lives part-time in Dubai, says her family lives near an airbase that was frequently targeted by strikes.
“It was just really traumatizing,” she said. “You could hear it, you could feel it. The house was shaking. (It was) the scariest thing I’ve ever been through.”
Brown described panic and anxiety as she tried to keep her family safe in the first few days after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, saying one day she was at the beach with her children, and the next day it was “chaos.”
“We all slept downstairs in the living room, away from windows,” she said.
Brown arrived in Toronto on an Emirates flight that the Canadian government had booked 51 seats on, earmarked for Canadians fleeing the region. But Brown said her family secured their spots on the flight themselves after the federal government advised Canadians to find their own way out of the region earlier this week.
“We were in Dubai trying to call Emirates … and (my mom in Canada) was the only one that was actually able to get through,” Brown said. “The advice from the Canadian government was to find your own commercial way out. But how is that possible if we can't even book anything?”
Earlier this week, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Canadians stuck in the Middle East should “prepare departure plans that do not rely solely on government of Canada assistance,” before later announcing plans to book hundreds of seats for Canadians on flights leaving the region.
Brown is calling on the Canadian government to step up measures to evacuate Canadians from the Middle East.
“There's still a lot of Canadians there. They need to ramp it up,” she said. “We need them in Dubai, in Abu Dhabi, getting Canadians out.”
Barb McBean, who touched down in Toronto with her husband Bob McBean, said she’s looking forward to her first good night’s sleep back on home soil “instead of listening for fighter jets and drones.”
The McBeans had been staying at a hotel in the Palm Jumeirah, a famous man-made island off the coast of Dubai, when the war broke out last Saturday. They described hearing explosions overhead daily as the UAE government shot down Iranian missiles and drones.
“We did see when the missiles got intercepted,” Bob said. “They'd blow up right in front of your face. You could see them out over the water.”
When the war broke out, Barb said it felt like “COVID all over again” as traffic in Dubai screeched to a halt as residents were told to shelter indoors.
“It was quite nerve-racking because all of a sudden your phone would get these loud alerts saying get covered, go down to basements, get away from windows, and this was going on day and night,” she said. “It was scary for everybody.”
Bob, who said he’s worked in Dubai on and off for the past 30 years in the oil and gas industry, criticized the U.S. government for its military action against Iran as some critics have said the attack violated international law.
“It just isn't the right thing to do,” he said. “They didn't even go through their own Congress, forget the UN.”
He’s pleased that Canada has, so far, not got involved militarily in the conflict.
“I don't think we should be responding. That's their problem, go fight it, it's not something we should be involved in,” he said.
The McBeans will continue their journey from Toronto back home to Kelowna. Meanwhile, Brown says she’s focused on making sure her children are all right after the week they just went through.
The mother of three said it was difficult to explain to her children – ages eight, six and three – what was happening as the war raged on their doorstep.
“They were asking me if (they could) go outside … and play with the neighbours and I’m freaking out. I’m hearing things overhead,” she recalled. “We’ll definitely have to get some type of counselling after this.”
Global Affairs Canada says it is not aware of any Canadians who have been hurt or killed because of hostilities in the Middle East so far.
Hundreds more Canadians are expected to fly out of the region in the coming days after the federal government block booked hundreds of seats on outgoing flights.
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sammy Kogan
