{"id":179631,"date":"2018-09-01T21:55:52","date_gmt":"2018-09-02T01:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=179631"},"modified":"2018-09-01T21:55:52","modified_gmt":"2018-09-02T01:55:52","slug":"john-mccain-friend-canada-says-defence-minister-harjit-sajjan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/09\/01\/john-mccain-friend-canada-says-defence-minister-harjit-sajjan\/","title":{"rendered":"John McCain was ‘a friend to Canada’ says Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
\u201cHe was a friend to Canada,\u201d said Sajjan. \u201cHe understood the importance of Canada-U.S. relations.\u201d (File Photo<\/a> By United States Congress – United States Senator John McCain Facebook page\/Wikimedia, Public Domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

National Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan was among Canadian officials who attended John McCain’s funeral in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, and he called the senator a \u201cfriend to\u00a0Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sajjan said McCain always made time to speak to him and other Canadian officials at security conferences around the world and that McCain had built a \u201cgreat relationship with\u00a0Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a friend to\u00a0Canada,\u201d said Sajjan. \u201cHe understood the importance of\u00a0Canada-U.S. relations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew Leslie, the parliamentary secretary for U.S.-Canada\u00a0relations also attended the service.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a true honour to lead the Canadian delegation with Andrew Leslie to pay tribute to a great American and a true friend to\u00a0Canada\u00a0for his service,\u201d said Sajjan, adding that former cabinet minister Peter MacKay was also at the funeral.<\/p>\n

McCain, who died on Aug. 25 at age 81, was a decorated veteran who was held for more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was just a tremendous man with a great heart and the (funeral) service was very fitting for the service that he provided for his nation,\u201d said Sajjan.<\/p>\n

McCain’s daughter opened his memorial service at Washington National Cathedral, the last event as part of McCain’s five-day, cross-country funeral procession.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness \u2014 the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly, nor the opportunistic appropriation of those who lived lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served,\u201d said Meghan McCain in the cathedral packed with family, friends, former presidents, members of Congress, and current and former world leaders.<\/p>\n

Former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush also spoke about the senator at the service.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump was not invited to the funeral. Two of his top aides along with his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner attended the service.<\/p>\n

Following McCain’s death, Sajjan tweeted that he considered the senator to be a hero who served his country with dignity and honour.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think anyone that has served knows senator McCain’s service and what he went through and his life of service. And even afterwards he served in office. He always had the opportunity everywhere he travelled to stay true to his values and that service needs to be recognized, because he was a hero to many, not just to the U.S. but around the world,\u201d said Sajjan.<\/p>\n

McCain is to be buried on Sunday at his alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

National Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan was among Canadian officials who attended John McCain’s funeral in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":178635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-alanna-rizza","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}