No worries.
Peace be upon you. My name is Tasnim Hasan, and it's my pleasure to join you today on unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin territory.
Today I want to talk about investment, and what it means to invest in humanity. I want to talk about the dollars and numbers, but I want to talk more about what those dollars and numbers mean when they are being invested in shaping the stories and changing the life paths and rewriting the future.
I am a social worker working in various community social services. This topic is broader, more complex and intertwined with every investment decision made here by the committee. Please allow me to broaden this conversation.
Canada prides itself on investing in the Muslim community, and particularly in the refugee community. Understand that Canada is very deeply invested in simultaneously creating these refugees, their continued dehumanization globally and their oppression at the hands of our so-called political allies. Canada is invested in nearly every major contemporary mass violence against Muslims globally right now. The Government of Canada allocates millions of dollars in aid to places suffering under completely preventable conflicts. In Yemen, home now to the world's largest man-made famine, Canada remains active in an armoured vehicle agreement, which directly supports their oppressor and one of the major causes of this famine, Saudi Arabia.
How can Canada account for vehicles built in Winnipeg and fashioned with American machine guns being used against a starved population? Similarly the Government of Canada prioritizes Israeli trade relations despite global condemnation, including from the United Nations, of human rights violations and war crimes committed against Palestine, the people of Gaza, the world's largest outdoor prison? Not even to mention watching while Israel decimates international law to bulldoze Palestinians, Muslims and Christians alike, out of their homes in illegal settlements.
To justify this ongoing human rights crisis, Israel funds millions each year in anti-Muslim propaganda in countries such as the U.S.A. and here in Canada. Canada may be admitting refugees but we're also supporting a regime that continues to create these refugees and pays millions annually in dehumanizing Muslims. The Government of Canada is willing to put forth trade agreements with ASEAN that include countries like Myanmar, a government actively committing genocide against their Muslim Rohingya population. The Government of Canada instead sends aid to assist with managing the world's largest refugee camp there.
In China, the Government of Canada has a trade relationship based on mutual investment and yet we fall short in human investment for the millions of Uighur Muslims currently imprisoned in the world's largest concentration camp with a Muslim population of at least 1.5 million.
Canada can no longer afford to pay three times—the first time through trade agreements and silence on the oppressions by supporting illegal global regimes committing acts of genocide against Muslims; the second time when we have to then expend enormous resources taking in the refugees we are complicit in creating—they will always be welcome here, but let's go to the source. Lastly Canada can no longer afford to lose the investment in our collective humanity. We need to put words into action and hold our own on the world stage. Every dollar we invest in these violent relationships and justifications of human rights violations we are taking away from children's education, settlement services, health care, all the services to Canadians right here at home.
What you choose rewrites the story for millions of people. I trust that it will no longer be taken lightly
Thank you very much.