Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 9th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Good morning, everyone. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), our study of Canada's response to the violence, religious persecution, and dislocation caused by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant will start.

I want to welcome our witnesses, those who are here today and those who are joining us via teleconference. After I introduce the witnesses, we'll have their opening remarks. After that, we'll go around the room and have individuals ask questions.

Joining us via teleconference from Washington, D.C., we have Dr. Thomas Farr, director of the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown University.

Dr. Farr, welcome.

[Dr. Thomas Farr, Director, Religious Freedom Project, Georgetown University, As an Individual]

I'm delighted to be here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I understand you're able to join us for the first hour. Is that correct?

[Dr. Thomas Farr]

That's correct.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Excellent. We'll get back to you very shortly.

Joining us from the Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East we have Bishop Emmanuel Joseph Mar-Emmanuel. Welcome, sir. We're glad to have you here.

Joining us as an individual we have Jonathan Halevi, who is with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Welcome to you, sir.

Dr. Farr, we'll start with your opening statement and then we'll continue here in the room. Once the opening statements are done, as I mentioned, we'll go back and forth with questions from the members.

Dr. Farr, we'll turn it over to you, sir. You have the floor for10 minutes, please.

[Dr. Thomas Farr]

Thank you, Mr. Allison. Thanks for inviting me to testify on the subject of such importance to both our nations.

Three months ago, the U.S. marked the 13th anniversary of the Islamist terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. What we're facing with ISIL today in Iraq and Syria has deeply troubling similarities to 9/11, in my view, both in its origins and in its threat to international security. Now, there is of course at least one major difference between then and now: while Christians and other minorities in the Middle East were under mounting pressure in 2001, today their very existence is at risk. We're witnessing the disappearance of Christians and Christianity from Iraq and Syria, a religious and cultural genocide with terrible humanitarian, moral, and strategic consequences for Christians, for the region and for all of us. What has not changed since 9/11 is the root cause of Islamist terrorism: a radical and spreading interpretation of Islam nourished and abetted by Middle Eastern tyrants, both secular and religious, by legal and cultural practices of radical intolerance, and by a dying political order.

Unfortunately the religion avoidance syndrome that afflicts many western policy-makers has not served us well in addressing this threat. Whatever political order emerges in the Middle East will necessarily be grounded in the religion of Islam. Despite the efforts of western and western-inspired modernizers, religion remains the primary identity of people in the region. This means that any successful new political order must ultimately be based on religious freedom, that is, full equality under the law for all religious communities. Both history and contemporary research make it clear that religious freedom will be necessary if highly religious societies are to be stable and to rid themselves of religious violence and terrorism.

While military force is clearly necessary against ISIL and on occasion will be required against other terrorist groups, force alone will not suffice. For this reason, Canadian and U.S. international religious freedom policy should be understood as part of a broader national security strategy, as a diplomatic counterterrorism tool, if you will.

In recent decades Islamist terrorist movements have emerged throughout the world and they are today present in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Notwithstanding their theological and other differences, these groups are motivated by a belief that God is calling them to brutality and violence against the enemies of Islam. In the case of ISIL, the objective is to conquer and control territory in order to carry out this divinely ordained mission. Most of these groups would destroy our countries if they had the means. Violent Islamist extremism has deep roots in the last century and beyond. Varying factors have contributed to the emergence of religiously disparate groups like Saudi Wahhabism, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, Hezbollah, the al-Nusra Front, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda and its various guises, and ISIL. Those factors doubtless include economic stagnation, a sense of victimhood, and rage at the west, but the most powerful factor is religion, which energizes and sustains other grievances.

Let me quote, if I might, from the U.S. 9/11 commission report:

Islamist terrorist leaders draw on a long tradition of extreme intolerance within one stream of Islam....That stream is motivated by religion.... Islamist terrorists mean exactly what they say: to them America is the font of all evil, the “head of the snake,” and it must be converted or destroyed

Now, the vast majority of Muslims do not support violence or cruelty. They are horrified by what is taking place in the name of their religion, but it's also true that most Muslim majority nations have legal and social structures such as anti-blasphemy, anti-defamation, and anti-apostasy laws and practices that encourage extremism, including against Muslim minorities, and that discourage the liberalizing voices of Islam. It's here that Canadian and U.S. religious freedom policy can make a contribution. Until the extremist understanding of Islam is utterly discredited in the Islamic world, or at least moved to the margins of intellectual, theological, and political discourse, Islamist terrorism will continue to grow and flourish.

Let me give a brief example to illustrate the point. A few years ago, an Afghan graduate student submitted a research paper that argued, from the Koran, that Islam supports the equality of men and women. His professors turned him in to local police. He was charged with blasphemy, convicted, and sentenced to death. The rationale for this action was that the young man had offended Islam and must be punished.

So long as this malevolent idea remains institutionalized in Muslim societies, radicals will dominate the discourse about what Islam requires of its adherents. That idea must be isolated within, if not eliminated from, Muslim societies if they are to rid themselves of the scourge of Islamist extremism and terrorism. A regime of religious freedom would help in this task by ensuring open debate about Islam and other religions without fear of criminal charges or mob violence. One could criticize anti-blasphemy laws, for example, and support religious freedom without fear of being murdered, as were two Pakistani leaders recently, Shahbaz Bhatti and Salmaan Taseer. History, modern research, and common sense tell us that a system of religious liberty would undermine radicalism. On the other hand, repression of the kind that has been endemic in the Middle East clearly encourages radicalism.

Let me conclude by addressing what Canadian international religious freedom policy might do to mitigate the threat of Islamist terrorism in the Middle East, in particular ISIL. There's much to be said here, but the key to success will be overcoming the widespread presumption that religious freedom is a Trojan horse designed to destroy Islam, and replacing it with the firm understanding that religious freedom is necessary for the health of Islam. In order to accomplish this goal, Canada should ensure that the diplomatic status and authority and the resources allocated to its own very impressive religious freedom ambassador, Ambassador Andrew Bennett, are sufficient to communicate to other nations and to Canada's own diplomatic establishment that this issue is a high priority for the Canadian government and that it will remain so into the future. Give the ambassador everything he needs to develop strategies and to implement them in key countries around the globe.

However, to be successful, this policy cannot be the purview of a single office or ambassador. I also urge Canada to train all its diplomats to understand what religious freedom is, why it's important for both individuals and societies, why advancing it is important for Canadian national interests, and how to advance it.

In the end, we have to convince struggling Muslim democracies such as those in Iraq, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Pakistan that until they move in the direction of religious freedom, they will never achieve their own goals of stable self-government, internal security, economic growth, and peace.

I don't discount, Mr. Chairman, the extraordinary difficulties that will attend the development and implementation of the policy I've described, but in my view, the stakes are high enough to make the effort. I believe that Canada, the U.S., and other nations can together mount an effective religious freedom counterterrorism policy that does not entail the costs in blood and treasure that military action does. Indeed, religious freedom diplomacy, if successful, would reduce the need for military action and reduce the loss of blood and life and treasure.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. I'd be happy to entertain questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Dr. Farr.

Bishop Mar-Emmanuel, the floor is yours, sir.

[Emmanuel Joseph Mar-Emmanuel, Diocesan Bishop, Diocese of Canada, Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and the standing committee, for allowing me to stand here and give my testimony.

I'll begin with a background about Christianity and the people of Iraq and Syria.

With respect to culture, the Christians of Iraq are descended from the native people of ancient Mesopotamia, that is, Assyria and Babylonia, the cradle of civilization. The ancient Christians of Iraq and Syria both trace their Christianity back to apostolic times. By the 10th century in Mesopotamia, which is roughly modern-day Iraq, the Christians constituted a majority of the population and had lived under Muslim rule since the Arab conquest of the region in the 7th century AD.

During the First World War, genocide against Christians occurred in what is now Turkey. Millions, including Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Syrians or Syriac, were massacred in that horrible genocide. In 1932 Iraq became a member of the League of Nations and an independent country. Immediately after that, in 1933, the Iraqi army initiated a brutal massacre against the Assyrians, and over 3,000 innocent people died. Only those who meekly converted to Islam could save themselves. Immediately after this horrible massacre, the patriarch of the church was exiled. As church historian Christoph Baumer said, “For the surviving Assyrians it was crushing to experience the fact that an Islamic state, only a few months after the establishment of sovereignty, could allow itself to butcher members of a religious minority with impunity. No one reacted; Great Britain helped Iraq to hush up what had happened, and the League of Nations appointed a commission”. This commission recommended that the people could move to other countries. In time, one of them was Canada, and “thus the Assyrians had the status of refugees within their own homeland”.

Turning to the crisis today, things are relevant to what happened about 100 years ago, during the last century. During the crisis in Iraq and Syria and especially in the civil war that has erupted in Syria, Sunni insurgents have been very active under the name ISIS or ISIL. By June 2014 they found their stronghold in northern Iraq, especially in the city of Mosul, and the western part of Iraq in the province of Anbar. ISIS caused the deportation of thousands of Christians who were given options: either convert to Islam, or pay the jizya—the Koranic tax against non-Muslims—or leave, or suffer beheading. Thousands have left Mosul especially to go to northern Iraq, which is experiencing more peace today. They are mostly Christians, but there are also thousands of Yazidis and other minorities. During this exodus about 150,000 Christians and other religious minorities left the city soon after it was captured by ISIS and fled to the autonomous region of Kurdistan relocating mainly in the provinces of Erbil and Dohuk.

Currently, and particularly since winter has set in, there is a serious shortage of resources and basic necessities such as housing, medicine, food, clothing, etc. There is an urgent need for assistance from outside the region.

In the long term, one major concern among the dislocated Christians is that there will be inadequate security after they return to their homes, assuming that this in fact does take place. A great deal of mistrust has developed between ordinary Christians and Muslims. For Christians, those who have openly welcomed ISIS have broken a fundamental trust.

In the midst of the current crisis, all the leaders of the native Christian churches, along with several of the Christian political parties, support the creation of a safe zone within Iraq, where security is guaranteed and protected by the international community in collaboration with the central and regional governments of Iraq.

Also, to help you, I have included certain websites of the communities, with certain interviews or videos and daily reports about the situation in Iraq and Syria.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're now going to go to Jonathan Halevi, who is with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Jonathan, the floor is yours, sir.

[Jonathan Dahoah Halevi, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, As an Individual]

Good morning.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak with the committee about Canada's response to the violence, religious persecution, and dislocation caused by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The group’s official name is the Islamic State, and it is also known by these names: IS, ISIL, ISIS, Daesh, and the Caliphate.

All Canadian parties are united in condemning the Islamic State as an enemy of western civilization because of its stringent implementation of the sharia, the Islamic law, which includes, among other things, the mass killing of unbelievers and apostates; public beheading and crucifixion; chopping off thieves’ hands and legs; flogging cigarette smokers and alcohol consumers; allowing sex slaves; stifling with an iron fist any opposition; and depriving people of basic human rights.

The Canadian government and the opposition have differences over the preferred way to confront the Islamic State, whether by contributing, however modestly, to the U.S.-led military coalition, together with large-scale humanitarian aid, or by concentrating primarily on humanitarian aid and combat support.

The formulation of foreign policy in this case must consider, besides the obvious moral aspects, the objective evaluation of the threat posed by the Islamic State to Canada and Canadian strategic interests. The Islamic State has justly gained a reputation for being the most brutal and ruthless regime. It has taken control of large swaths of Syria and Iraq and has meticulously strengthened its grip by creating alliances with local clans and centres of power. It is accelerating its process of state-building with an emphasis on education in order to create a new jihadist generation.

The war in the Levant is not a political or territorial conflict that can be resolved by negotiations and compromise. The Islamic State leaves no doubt about its extremist Islamic Sunni ideology and its determination to relentlessly conduct jihad to spread the rule of Islam and the word of Allah, first in the Middle East and later in Europe and North America.

The cornerstone of the Islamic State’s publicly reiterated strategic goal is to conquer Rome, the capital of Italy and home of the Vatican, in order to strike the symbol of Christianity. Spain is portrayed as a formerly Islamic-occupied country, as are other parts of Europe, and all must be liberated, according to the Islamic State.

This is not a far-fetched harmless fantasy. It is an actual plan of action. The Islamic State sees itself as fully committed to bringing about the fulfilment of this prophecy of Muhammad in order to pave the way for the emergence of the Mahdi, the Muslim messiah. As part of its ideology that generates jihad in the Levant, the Islamic State calls upon all Muslims to initiate attacks throughout the world, including in Canada, with the explicit purpose of indiscriminately killing non-believers by all available means.

The Islamic State threatens Canadian strategic interests because of its unwavering religiously motivated determination to redraw the map of the Middle East, erase existing borders, unite the Muslim world under its flag, and pursue a foreign policy of jihad in which western civilization is the prime enemy.

Four years of civil war in Syria and Iraq with virtually no international interference have served as a golden opportunity for this al-Qaeda offshoot to gradually build up the Islamic State as an independent entity that can no longer be ignored. The west, including Canada, has no option of sitting on the sidelines. Refraining from confronting this threat head-on will most probably result in ever greater threats to the stability of the oil-rich Middle East and the main international trade arteries.

The military option against the Islamic State is not a magic wand. It is essential in the long run for degrading the group’s military power and terrorist capabilities, but it has little effect on the ideological aspect. Moreover, the Middle East is currently torn by the Sunni-Shiite rift. Ferocious sectarian fighting is taking place in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon, with friction also occurring in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere.

After the fighting ends in Syria and Iraq, the day-after strategy must focus on helping the local people build strong new regimes that respect human rights and will prevent a vacuum that might allow Iran to realize its vision of a Shiite Crescent and military domination over the Arabian Persian Gulf states.

The so-called Arab Spring, which has brought about the collapse of Arab regimes in the Middle East, prolonged civil wars, and the rise of radical Islamic movements, has caused millions to become displaced within their homelands, as well as flooding neighbouring countries with refugees who live in dire conditions. Curbing the Islamic State and preserving the basic geopolitical order in the Middle East is also important in order to limit human tragedy and prevent further chaos and the massive displacement of additional refugees.

U.S. President Barack Obama and political leaders in Canada have asserted that the Islamic State, with its rigid interpretation of the Koran, does not represent the true, peaceful vision of Islam. Prominent leaders of the Canadian Muslim community even argue that those who are affiliated with the Islamic State should not be portrayed as Muslim by the media.

It is true that none of the major Islamic movements worldwide or in Canada have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. However, the ideas of the caliphate and of jihad as a legitimate tool to spur this on globally, and the belief in the prophecy of Muhammad regarding Rome, are shared by the great majority of Islamic movements and organizations, including the international movement of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafi movement, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Islamic Jihad, Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, al-Qaeda and its affiliates, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranian regime, among others.

The caliphate, jihad, and the teachings of Muhammad are embedded and enshrined in the DNA of the Islamic faith, with some minor exceptions, and that explains why so many Canadians, like other westerners, are so fascinated with the message of the Islamic State and have gravitated to join its ranks. These ideas exist and flourish in Canada.

Listening to the voices of the Muslim community leaders is highly important to understanding the underground currents. The following are some examples. A leading imam in Montreal, who is also a member of the Quebec supreme council of imams, explained to his congregation in his weekly sermon that apostates should be executed in the Islamic State, mentioning in this regard the Islamic punishment of crucifixion and chopping off hands and legs. Another respected Toronto imam also justified the application of corporal punishment on apostates in the Islamic State in a speech at the University of Waterloo.

The Walk-In Islamic InfoCenter, a Toronto-based organization dedicated to dawah, propagating Islamic activity, distributes for free in downtown Toronto the book Human Rights in Islam And Common Misconceptions. Here are some quotes from the book, which is used to present the perspective of true Islam. It says that jihad is an honourable struggle to spread the message of Islam. It also says:

The non-Muslim residents of an Islamic state are required to pay a minimal tax called “Jizyah”.... If the robber kills and seizes the money, the punishment may be killing and crucifixion. If he takes money and threatens but does not kill or assault, the punishment may be amputation of his hand and leg.... As for...[the] married male or female who commit adultery, the punishment applied to them is stoning to death.... Execution of such an apostate is...a salvation for the rest of the society members....

The book also justifies slavery under certain conditions.

The caliphate and the strict implementation of sharia law are main tenets of the ideology embraced by the Canadian branch of the international Hizb ut-Tahrir organization. Facing the challenge posed by the Islamic State and the constant pressure on its members to pledge allegiance to the caliph, Hizb ut-Tahrir decided to move from the phase of preaching to taking concrete action to establish the true caliphate as an alternative to the Islamic State.

There are also mainstream imams who have warned of the danger, embodied in Islamic radicalism, to Canadian national security. An imam from Calgary called on the Canadian government to designate Wahhabism, a terrorist ideology, and the followers of Wahhabism an illegal terrorist cult. Another imam from Brampton, Ontario, described the Salafi ideology as extreme, like a poison, like a disease in the Muslim community. He said indoctrination was like brainwashing, and those who espouse it are misguided, very aggressive, and sometimes they can be violent.

An RCMP deradicalization counsellor who met recently with Taliban officials in Qatar admitted that, based on his own personal experience, converts to Islam are more vulnerable to absorbing extremism. At least 13 Canadian converts to Islam were involved in terrorist activities since mid-2012: two committed terrorist attacks in Canada; two are suspected of planning to blow up the legislature in Victoria, B.C.; one carried out a suicide bombing attack in Algeria; one was a would-be suicide bomber; six joined the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq; and one was killed in Dagestan after joining a local jihadist organization.

As to my recommendations, the Canadian government has already joined the multinational coalition against the Islamic State and tabled bills enhancing the powers of law enforcement agencies. I would like to concentrate mainly on the intelligence aspect.

According to CSIS and the RCMP, more than 140 Canadians were involved in terrorist activities abroad and 80 have returned to Canada. Each one comprises a potential threat to the country's national security.

Successfully thwarting future terrorist attacks requires greater investment in intelligence gathering in all its aspects: strengthening cooperation and information sharing with foreign intelligence agencies; building an extensive new database of foreign terrorists and terrorism suspects, which will be highly useful to improving the screening process of the Canada Border Services Agency; monitoring more closely those radical organizations that provide the ideological platform for ideas similar to those of the Islamic State; considering adding other radical organizations to the blacklist of unlawful entities; and exercising less tolerance toward incitement to violence and hate speech.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

The first round will be seven minutes for questions and answers. We'll start with Madame Laverdière.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

To start, I would like to say that the people whose aggressive comments were reported here this morning by Mr. Halevi are not representative of the Muslim community, in my opinion. As a general rule, Canada's Muslim leaders only make comments of tolerance, openness and peace. I think it is very important to point that out right off the bat.

That said, my first question would be for Dr. Farr.

I don't know if this is being translated for Dr. Farr, so I'll ask my questions in English. It might be simpler.

You talked about the work and the possibilities of what we could do with the office of religious freedom. Last year the performance report for the Department of Foreign Affairs indicated that $4.9 million was budgeted for the office of religious freedom last year, but out of that, 69%, or $3.4 million, was not spent.

Do you think it's money that could have been used last year, and that could have been useful?

[Dr. Thomas Farr]

Thank you very much for that question.

Obviously I do not know the details. I was aware of the roughly $5 million that had been allocated to the office. I certainly support the notion of funding. I'm at a bit of a disadvantage in not knowing precisely how the money was spent and was not spent, but as a general proposition I would say that the issue here is the quality of the expenditure of the money. I think it's very important, as I said in my remarks, that this issue, while it must be led by an ambassador such as Ambassador Bennett, who I think is very talented, needs to be a Canada-wide diplomatic initiative. It needs to be spread across the diplomatic service. Now, I say that because I know, having observed my own diplomatic service, from which I came, and having had 16 years since the passage of our own law on this, that this policy is not yet embraced by the American diplomatic service.

This is why I think the answer to your question should not be simply whether we should cut the funding here or there—I would urge you not to do that—but to ensure that the funding is supported by a strategy that will involve the entire diplomacy of Canada. That's where you will, if I might put it this way, make your money. That's where you will make progress against the scourge of Islamist terrorism.

I hope that's a clear answer to your question.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Yes. Thank you very much. It's very useful.

In your speech you also mentioned—I'm not quoting you exactly—that religion fuels and kind of crystallizes other grievances. In fact for homegrown radicalism, for example, it does appear that religion sometimes becomes an expression of other grievances.

I'm wondering what grievances you were thinking about. As well, what can be done to address these?

[Dr. Thomas Farr]

As I mentioned, I think there are legitimate economic concerns throughout the countries of the Middle East where violent Islamist radicalism is incubated and from which it is exported. They're economic grievances. There are legitimate concerns about the past. But all of these, in my judgment, pale in the explanatory power of this radical version of Islam as an explanation of this terrorism. My point was not so much to say that I think we need to address economic grievances. I do think we should, but this is a standard understanding of what we should be doing in the Middle East. What I am saying that I believe is truly new is that religious freedom is the answer to this linchpin of radical religion.

Religious freedom is a counterterrorism tool. Religious freedom frees Muslims to speak about their own religion and not be charged with blasphemy when they do so in a liberal way. Religious freedom, as both history and common sense make clear, plus modern research, is a way to bring religious people into the public square. It's not a matter of getting Islam out of the way. It's a matter of accommodating Islam to the basic norms of self-governance and, if you like, liberalism, although that's a term that is heavily laden.

So the answer to your question is yes, they're economic grievances, and they're concerns about the history of imperialism, but I think it is a mistake to focus on those. It's far more important to focus on religious freedom as the antidote to religion—to violent religion, I should say, religious extremism.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're now going to move to Mr. Anderson, for seven minutes.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

It's a very interesting discussion that we've had.

Mr. Farr, we've heard other testimony that this is actually not a religious battle, that ISIS basically hates everybody and will butcher every community, whether it's religious, Christian, or Islamic. It's a war with everyone they disagree with.

You talked about religion being the identity of this struggle. I'm wondering if you want to address that a little more.

[Dr. Thomas Farr]

Sure. I think it's very important if you're going to defeat any enemy—I assume we're all in agreement here—that you understand what motivates them. Why is it that they're doing what they're doing? Why have they conquered territory? Why have they brutalized captives, such as those who have been beheaded, such as those they have brutalized in Iraq, and the Christians, Yazidis, and others?

Terrible things have been going on. We all agree on that. Why are they doing this? Is it because they hate us? Is it because they hate everyone? I suppose there's some truth in that statement, but it doesn't do very much work in terms of telling us what to do about it.

As I said in my statement, I believe military action is necessary against these people, but it's not going to undermine the religious ideology, which I believe underlies what they are doing. Listen to what they say. Read what they say they're doing. They're not saying that they just hate everyone and are striking out blindly against the rest of the world, trying to carve out a little place. They're trying to carve out a caliphate and to use that as the way to expand this radical extremist version of Islam.

If we don't understand that, and if we aren't willing to put it on the table—with due respect to the vast majority of Muslims who do not think this way—if we don't do that, we're not going to be able to defeat this enemy.

I thank you for that question, Mr. Anderson. I think it's critically important to focus on the religious aspects of this problem.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I'd like all three of you to address this. Are the Islamic communities in Canada—I'll limit it to that—ready or able to isolate their radical counterparts? One of the complaints I've heard from what I would call moderate Muslim leaders is that they're out-funded in terms of communication, out-funded in terms of education, and out-funded in terms of the establishment of mosques.

Mr. Halevi, you talk about there being voices speaking out against Wahhabism and the Salafis, etc. Are there enough moderate voices? In your mind, do they have the strength and capacity to be able to win that battle in Canada, I'll say, or in North America, if Mr. Farr wants to address this?

[Jonathan Dahoah Halevi]

The problems with extremism go back to the roots of radicalism. We are talking about the ideas of the caliphate. When someone says that the ideas of the caliphate do not represent Muslims or the Muslim community in Canada, I think that should be corroborated, because the essence, the main issue, the major tenet, of Islam is restoring the caliphate and building the Islamic State.

The major groups in Islam today have differences about the conditions to establish the caliphate, to establish the Islamic State, but the idea of it is being taught in private schools and mosques. In dealing with radicalism here in Canada—we're talking about funds; we're talking about the importance of pluralism and liberalism—I think it's very important to allocate funds to supporting new trends in Muslim community that support reformism, liberalism, and also secularism in Muslim communities.

As I see it from the outside, there is intolerance towards Muslims who do not go on the mainstream path. Those who espouse secular views are not regarded as part of the mainstream Muslim community. I'm talking about the voices who are explicitly against radicalism, Tarek Fatah and others. They are not being adopted by the mainstream Muslim community, on the contrary.

I think it is very important to encourage within the Muslim community, like all other faith communities, the importance of liberalism and tolerance toward other voices.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Isn't it a bit of a contradiction to expect secularism to exist in faith communities and play a major role?

[Jonathan Dahoah Halevi]

I mean tolerance.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Okay.

Mr. Farr, I think I'm running out of time here, if you....

[Dr. Thomas Farr]

Just very briefly, I would say that we have the same problem in the United States, obviously, of some Muslims being radicalized. I think on balance the answer to this....

It sounds like I think the answer to every problem is religious freedom, but religious freedom includes the right, even in a secular society, for religious people to bring their views into the public square. I think to the extent the United States has been successful in doing this, it's because religious freedom means that Muslims can bring their ideas into the public square but they can be challenged. We have a constant dialogue about what Islam means. It's not always a happy dialogue. It hasn't worked perfectly—I mean, we have our own radicals—but at the end of the day, I think for the kind of secularism that removes religion from the public square, that is not supportive of the kind of liberalism and tolerance that Mr. Halevi speaks of. It is the kind of religious freedom and secularism that invites religion into the public square within the norms of democracy that can help.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Halevi, you talked about state-building and the importance of that. We've heard quite a bit about that here. Can you give us some idea of where you think that needs to start and what's happening in that area right now?