Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for joining us today, Mr. Hanley.
I participated in the trip with your organization in 2018 and I had a nice experience. Earlier, you spoke about some unique things, and so I would like to tell my colleagues that my riding has a very unique Jewish community, namely, the Tosh community, which was established in 1964 and is home to 3,000 individuals, including 350 families. It's very unique. Its primary connection is to New York city and not to Israel.
During that trip, I was happy to meet with government representatives, people from Parliament and Palestinians in a bid to understand why you need an organization that represents the interests of various Jewish communities. My understanding was that these communities are not homogeneous and that the Jewish community in my riding is very Orthodox.
You welcomed the recent government announcement on the Canada community security program in light of the troubling rise of anti-Semitism. I should point out that Boisbriand has not experienced that over the past five years. That said, given that members of the Tosh community have a distinctive style of dressing, the people of Boisbriand have always been fairly apprehensive about them, even though they don't cause any problems and they keep to their community.
We have seen a rise in anti-Semitism across Canada over the past few years, and so I would imagine that your organization has had significant opportunities to engage directly with the Minister of Public Safety and with departmental officials to express concern and to advocate for programs, such as the Canada community security program.
With that in mind, would you say that this is a compelling example that illustrates the importance of a transparent and accessible lobbying regime that allows organizations, such as the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, to express their concerns, to make their voice heard and ultimately help shape policies that protect vulnerable communities?
The community in my riding has received funding to set up security systems.