 Although the deal was penned by Stephen Harper's conservative government, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave the go-ahead for the deal to proceed in April 2016 when he assigned permits allowing for the export of the vehicles.When Trudeau was confronted about the possibility of Saudi Arabia using the vehicles against its civilian population, he stated that he was obliged to respect the deal made by his predecessor.In August 2017, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland initiated an investigation into Saudi usage of Canadian-made vehicles and in February 2018 the investigative team concluded that there was no definitive evidence that Saudi Arabia had ever inflicted human rights abuses using vehicles originating from Canada.