Yes, absolutely.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you so much for the invitation to speak with you today.
I really would have loved to be there in person, particularly because the House of Commons was the scene of a horrific attack in Canada that bears a resemblance to what we have seen in Nigeria on a daily basis. Permit me to use this time to extend my condolences to your dear nation on the recent tragedy.
Let me provide a couple of quick statistics. The first is that more Christians have been killed this century than in previous centuries. The second is that Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world, according to a Pew study. Third, more Christians were killed in northern Nigeria in 2012 than in the rest of the world combined. So Nigeria alone accounted for more than 60% of Christian martyrs in the year 2012.
I also want to describe briefly the character and nature of persecution in northern Nigeria. There are three broad categories. I call them the three S's. One of them is state persecution, another one is street persecution, and the third is sect persecution.
In northern Nigeria you see persecution from state governments that will imprison Muslims who become Christians and that will persecute Christians in employment, discriminate against them, and deny them access to land. Then you have street persecution, where occasionally Muslims will come out on the streets and burn churches because they feel an infidel has done something wrong. Then you have the sect persecution, which is Boko Haram. This is persecution on steroids, where they go out and kill massively. That, in a nutshell, is the nature of persecution in northern Nigeria.
I do want to make a final point here. I'm delighted that Canada designated Boko Haram a foreign terrorist organization. This is a campaign I led in the United States, and I'm glad Canada did it on its own without much advocacy. But designating Boko Haram a foreign terrorist organization is like causing darkness. We now want steps such as lighting a candle. What can we do to end this genocide that is happening on such massive scales in northern Nigeria?
Let me wrap up my comments now by paying tribute to the wonderful Canadian missionaries who have been associated with my family for several generations. We're still in touch with them today. They hide. I want to say that Christianity in northern Nigeria is part of the Canadian legacy [Technical Difficulty—Editor] heritage with northern Nigeria, and it is very painful to see the investments of all these great missionaries being looted, burned, and destroyed by this vicious terrorist group, Boko Haram.
Finally, I want to thank you very much for paying attention to this key issue that is happening in a remote part of the world. It's not getting the kind of headlines and attention that ISIS in Iraq is getting, even though Boko Haram has been shown to be the second worst terror group in the world, ahead of ISIS, by a U.S. government terrorism study in 2012.
Thank you very much.