National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, first of all I should be clear that with reference to all 10 recommendations made by Madam Deschamps, we will achieve the outcomes that she was suggesting. Two of them we have accepted immediately, and—the questioner is right—of the other eight we are absolutely commit

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, our belief and our understanding from information we had from the coalition was that the particular weapon that Canadians were carrying was only being carried by the USAF. In fact, one of the other coalition partners who was in there later indicated that they were gett

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, all costs are tracked of course for every taxpayer dollar spent in defence purposes. Often the costs associated with a visit of members of the Government of Canada fit into regular activities. However, all costs are tracked and we will provide that to the chair.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, as efforts move ahead to provide input to the updating of the Canada First defence strategy—refinement of Canadian Armed Forces' equipment, personnel, units, basing—those are the types of things we provide input on that is absolutely confidential. I cannot share that.

National Defence committee  I wouldn't confirm or deny that, Madam.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, the comments, for which I have apologized, referred to a question in which the interviewer had asked how we could be dealing with sexual assault in 2015 in view of the prevalence of this issue being a societal problem. My unhelpful comments were a conjecture that reall

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, in no way did I indicate, even for the comments that I apologized for, that there is any excuse for any type of sexual misconduct by anyone in uniform, nor would I ever do that, nor does anyone in uniform believe that.

National Defence committee  First, Mr. Chair, I do agree that we do have a problem that needs to be addressed. I would take issue with the characterization of my internal study, which did say that policies were in place; however, it indicated that reporting was likely not at a level that we needed and var

National Defence committee  I agree, Mr. Chair, that there can be no excuse for sexual misconduct. The nature of my comments yesterday came from a question saying, here in 2015, how can it be that the Canadian Armed Forces are dealing with sexual misconduct in view of the fact that this is a societal proble

National Defence committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, I must make it entirely clear that sexual misconduct of any kind in the military is absolutely unacceptable. There is nothing that I could say or would ever say that would indicate it's acceptable. In my comments yesterday, I stand by the apol

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you. I need to say that the orders I gave to our members in the operation right now were developed based on a very clear understanding through a discussion process with the government on what exactly the government is approving. That was an advise and assist role, which i

Foreign Affairs committee  I don't believe we have a doctrinal determination of a firefight. I've just been thinking about your question. I'm not sure of that. It doesn't fall into the definition of a combat mission.

National Defence committee  Thank you. I need to say that the orders I gave to our members in the operation right now were developed based on a very clear understanding through a discussion process with the government on what exactly the government is approving. That was an advise and assist role, which i

National Defence committee  I don't believe we have a doctrinal determination of a firefight. I've just been thinking about your question. I'm not sure of that. It doesn't fall into the definition of a combat mission.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you. Mr. Chair, it is not. Under the advise and assist role, we are able to provide the peshmerga the ability to heighten the accuracy of the weapons they are calling in for their combat role—not our combat role, but their combat role. What we would require to be in comb