Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have to say, the characterization of support for Mahmoud Abbas as — and I think I'm accurately quoting — “funding a terrorist death cult” causes me a great deal of concern about how counterproductive, provocative, and dead wrong many of the things I've heard from your organization today really are. But I don't want to pursue that.
I'd like to ask a question to both groups with respect to the government's — the government likes to call itself the new Conservative government — creation of the Office for Democratic Governance, which is now having funding rolled out to support its activities. My question is whether either of your organizations was consulted in the process of the creation of that new Office for Democratic Governance. And what would you hope would be the results of its creation?
Second, given the amount of focus the Canadian Coalition for Democracies has expressed about transparency, accountability, and so on, what is your position on Bill C-293, which this committee has been dealing with and which is largely inspired by the need for ensuring effectiveness, transparency, and greater accountability?