Thank you, Chair.
Good morning. My name is Ahmad Al Qadi. I'm joined by Nusaiba Al Azem, director of legal affairs for the National Council of Canadian Muslims. We're here to offer submissions on Bill C-70.
Let us begin by noting that many of the goals in the act are laudable. In fact, more than four years ago we testified in front of the foreign affairs committee about the need for Canada to crack down on foreign agents from any nation, given the clear intimidation that Uyghur Canadians were facing from Chinese state agents. We are deeply troubled by the numerous reports of interference by foreign states, including the governments of India, China and others, which have a pattern of engaging in crackdowns on minority communities
We are in full agreement with what many others have stated before you in this committee: Canada must take action to challenge foreign interference. That's why we have clearly supported parts of this legislation, such as the call for a foreign agents transparency registry.
That being said, while there is much that is good about this act, we must first note as clearly as we can that rushing to pass this bill in its entirety would be problematic. When we are rushing to make changes to our national security legislation that have fundamental impacts on privacy legislation, when we are further empowering agencies like CSIS that numerous judges have cited for their problematic behaviour and when there has been no time for academics or civil society actors to review the legislation, respectfully, there is a high likelihood that unintended consequences will result. Even today, as we are offering our initial response to the legislation, we doubt we will be able to provide fulsome answers to all of the questions posed given that we received a technical briefing on the legislation from government officials only yesterday.
Moving too fast can impact everyone negatively. Our national security agencies have in the past erroneously targeted Christian social conservatives, environmentalists, Sikh communities, indigenous communities, Muslims, progressives and everyone in between. That's why we believe more time is needed to conduct a fulsome study with academics and experts that isn't crammed into one week. Our first and most important recommendation to this committee, therefore, is to split the bill, pass part 4, which most have considered to be strong and relatively uncontroversial, and study the rest of the important suggestions laid out in the bill in a far more thorough fashion.
I will turn it over to my colleague Nusaiba.