Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for inviting us here today. I am the President of the Centre culturel islamique, or Islamic cultural centre, which was founded in 1985. I have been in Canada for 50 years. I grew up in this peaceful, harmonious country, but in recent years, we have seen a change that is very dangerous to society, and I have witnessed it.
I have come here with brothers, one of whom was struck by bullets that went through his abdomen and hit his kidneys, and another one whose knee and toe were shattered by a bullet. Worse still, six people were killed and five injured, and we now have 17 orphans. We have a lot to say.
If there is one thing I want to ask of you today—just one thing—, it is that civilians should be prohibited from owning assault weapons. They are weapons of war intended to kill people and not for training or recreational shooting in the woods. In fact, we should also show our trees more respect and not shoot at them. We let people who are not in their right mind have weapons that are designed to kill, weapons of war, that should only be used by members of the military in accordance with the rules.
If that man had entered a shopping centre, as he had said, and had taken out his gun, there would have been a lot more victims. If his gun had not jammed when he wanted to kill the first two Guineans and he had killed them, he would have killed the 80 people there and would have gone up to the next floor to kill others. Please help us and help society by prohibiting these assault weapons and weapons of war in Canada. It is in the interests of all of society.
Thank you.