Let me make a non-political statement on this because one doesn't want to transform countering terrorism finance into a political party issue.
I think the point is twofold. One is that at the time Saudi Arabia had not yet judged those mosques and that “current” of theology in Islam as being a threat to Islam. It changed afterwards. From our point of view, it was a threat to Canada then.
The problem, in my personal view, is that we have to begin treating terrorism and counterterrorism like we treat all “conflict threats” to Canada: as non-partisan. To my mind, there should be consultation and counsel between the Government of Canada and the leaders and members of Parliament of opposition parties, to achieve a non-partisan consensus on what constitutes the threats to Canada and how to constrain and impede those threats from materializing into political violence within Canada. That should be done in an absolutely non-partisan sense, as we did during wartime.
I think we have to return to that. I'm hopeful that Parliament—and through this committee examining terrorism finance—can achieve this metapolitical consensus on terrorism financing threats to Canadian interests.