"We never really talked about it, never really considered, I guess, the long-term health impacts. We just got on with the job,"he said.
"Each conflict we learn afterwards about some type of large environmental exposure. I do think burn pits are the more recent version of Agent Orange."
"It presumes in the veterans' favour that if you were exposed to a burn pit and you present with one of these 23 conditions, that you will automatically be granted the benefits in health care that you deserve without having to go through the delay of waiting for scientific data to prove that."
"I think if the United States Congress decides that it wants to do things that are not based on medical scientific evidence, that is really a question for them,"he said.
"One person can get exposed and end up being very ill. Another person gets exposed and nothing happens."
"I've had some veterans of that conflict [in Iraq and Afghanistan] raise the burn pit issue with me … and the cases that have been raised with me have been quite isolated,"he said.
"I think we should absolutely have a register,"he said.
"What I would ask is why we're not being viewed as the same as the US? What is the discrepancy there? Doesn't make sense to me."