Harjit S. Sajjan

[National Defence, June 15th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, as I said, 26 aircraft have been extended. We are trying to extend all the aircraft up to 2025. There is a capability gap that does exist. I am happy to talk to some of the members privately on this with a declassified reason behind that. However, we are committed to replacing the fighters and we need to replace them now.

[National Defence, June 15th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, as I stated, the CF-18s should have been retired a long time ago. They should have been replaced so that we did not have to spend all this money in extending their lives, so that our men and women in the air force could have the right aircraft for their needs. But we are in this situation. There is a capability gap and our government is working toward replacing them as quickly as possible.

[National Defence, June 15th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, as for taking advice from the previous government, given the fact that it mismanaged the file from the beginning, it should have replaced our fighters a long time ago and then we would not be in this situation. Right now we are extending our CF-18s, and 26 have gone through the process. A lot more work needs to be done, but we would not be here if we had replaced the fighters 10 years ago.

[National Defence, June 15th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, our government is committed to replacing our fighters. Because of the mismanagement of this file by the previous government, that is why we are in this state. Yes, there is a capability gap, but we are working toward making sure that we have all the right information and making sure that we have the right fighter for the Canadian Armed Forces.

[National Defence, June 15th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I was just made aware of the article where the allegations were made. We take this very seriously. Our government is committed to upholding our Canadian and international law obligations. My officials will be looking into these allegations, and any allegations that are made. We have a number of institutions in the Canadian Armed Forces that are independent and have the ability to look into these matters.

[National Defence, June 15th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, our government and I take our obligation for human rights in accordance with Canadian and international law very seriously.

There has been a number of investigations and inquiries done. Many feature allegations we take very seriously. We, in the Canadian Armed Forces and our government, will be doing our utmost, making sure that human rights are always at the forefront of what we do.

[National Defence, June 13th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, our government is committed to making sure that we replace the fighters and we will do so and any procurement that takes place with our fighters will benefit Canada and make sure that our industry benefits as well.

[National Defence, June 13th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, as I stated, we take our obligations very seriously. Our men and women in uniform, for all our missions, have done extraordinarily well, in particular, in Afghanistan.

In terms of our focus being the current missions and the missions that we will go on, we will always have an emphasis on the Geneva Convention international law and a strong stand on human rights.

[National Defence, June 13th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, we take our obligations to the Geneva Convention international law very seriously. When it comes to any of our missions that our men and women go on and our current missions that we have, there is a considerable amount of pre-deployment training where we emphasize this and human rights. In addition, we emphasize this while we take part in the training with the Kurdish forces and those who are training as well.

[National Defence, June 9th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, as I have stated many times before, no decision has been made yet. We are working toward this.

As I stated, we are committed to replacing the CF-18s, and our officials are working diligently toward this and making sure that we purchase the right fighter for the capabilities of the Canadian Armed Forces.