Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In 2007, the U.S. Department of Justice designated the CAIR mother group an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the successful U.S. Holy Land Foundation terrorist funding prosecution. When CAIR challenged the justice department designation in U.S. district court, the court upheld the designation, ruling that “[The] Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR...with Hamas.” Hamas is a terrorist entity under Canadian and U.S. law. The FBI ended outreach dealings with the CAIR mother organization in 2008, and the relevance of this to outreach and aspects involving counter-radicalization relative to the legislation will become increasingly relevant.
In 2013, CAIR-CAN, the Canadian chapter, changed its name to the present National Council of Canadian Muslims, NCCM. Some argued that this was an attempt to divert attention from its CAIR U.S. connection. If so, this has been undermined by the NCCM name change statement, indicating that NCCM and CAIR-CAN remain the same organization, despite the name change. The NCCM news release stating this appears to have been removed from the NCCM/CAIR-CAN website, but I'd be pleased to furnish the committee with a copy.
Several high-level NCCM officials and staff from the CAIR-CAN days remain in comparable positions in NCCM. Detractors assert that NCCM/CAIR-CAN has failed to condemn publicly and by name the U.S. mother organization for its radical connections and the terror convicts related to that U.S. organization. Some note a possible NCCM/CAIR-CAN disinclination to reveal financial books and other records likely to explain its involvement with CAIR in Washington, and other links. Others have expressed concern about the organization's alleged tendency to spread an exaggerated and divisive victimhood narrative at a time when many worry about alienating Muslim youth.
NCCM/CAIR-CAN's civil liberties bona fides have been doubted by some as the result of CAIR-CAN's part in the 2000s in what has been claimed to have been a “libel lawfare” campaign by it and its mother group to silence media questions about them, with multiple libel lawsuits. Please see Dr. Daniel Pipes' analysis titled “CAIR's Growing Litigiousness”. It appears that a public relations backlash forced NCCM/CAIR-CAN and CAIR to dismiss their own libel lawsuits and give up on “lawfare”, at least at that time. As reported in Maclean's, I was one of those commentators and civil liberties defenders who was sued in libel, fought to defend the responsible exercise of section 2 of the charter—free expression and journalistic freedom—and forced CAIR-CAN/NCCM to shut down its own suit without apology or payment.
In 2014, NCCM/CAIR-CAN and the Islamic Social Services Association, ISSA—the latter led by NCCM/CAIR-CAN board member Shahina Siddiqui—prepared a so-called counter-radicalization handbook , “United Against Terrorism”. But the RCMP, which had contributed a chapter to this, withdrew its support for the project, owing to “adversarial” aspects of parts of the text. There were also criticisms of the handbook's selection of recommended Islamic scholars, some of whom were said to be among this continent's most radical.
One of several examples is Dr. Jamal Badawi, an Egyptian-born Canadian who has been described as an international Muslim Brotherhood leader, is a U.S. unindicted co-conspirator and has reportedly advocated for physical punishment of wives and for polygamy. Badawi spent years as a CAIR-CAN era official. The handbook also recommended Siraj Wahhaj, who appeared on the U.S. government list of 1993 World Trade Center bombing unindicted co-conspirators and reportedly has made extreme statements. Recommendee Imam Zaid Shakir was condemned for his ideology by U.S. moderate leader Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, who has appeared before this committee and the Anti-Defamation League.
Despite the RCMP's withdrawal from the project, I recently heard that the handbook continues to be distributed at home and abroad with the RCMP's name on the cover—a disturbing situation.
So, to the present, I trust that this personal review of the record will cast a clarifying light on the NCCM's allegation before this committee that close questioning of the organization amounts to “McCarthyesque” conduct. Perhaps my analysis might assist the committee and Canadians, in general, in weighing pertinent testimony.
I look forward to questions.
Thank you.