Mr. Chair, I have a matter I'd like to quickly bring up before we get to the witnesses.
I have a motion which has been on notice. I'd like to move it, and read it into the record:
Given that recent court filings have revealed disturbing details about a thwarted ISIS linked bomb plot targeting Jewish Canadians on Parliament Hill, and given that hate crimes have increased 251% over the past nine years,
The committee immediately prioritize a study to investigate the dramatic rise in terrorist plots and acts of violence targeting Canada's Jewish community, including the thwarted terror attack on Parliament Hill; that the study be comprised of no less than six meetings; that the Minister of Public Safety, the Special Advisor on Jewish Community Relations and Antisemitism to the Prime Minister, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner, the Director of the Parliamentary Protective Service, the Director of Canadian Security Intelligence Service and other law enforcement officials, and civil society and academic organizations, including the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and B'nai Brith, be invited to testify as part of this study; and that the committee report its findings and recommendations to the House.
Mr. Chair, briefly, this is a very important motion given what happened. I was at that rally last December where there were hundreds of people on the front lawn of Parliament Hill. If the RCMP hadn't done their good work in foiling this plot, the carnage would have been something which we would have never been able to accept.
The revelations about this foiled terrorist attack on Parliament Hill against the Jewish community strikes at the very heart of our democracy. It's something that parliamentarians should be very concerned about.
I want to thank my colleague, MP Raquel Dancho, a fellow Winnipegger, for bringing forward this important motion.
We have an important witness here today, so I suggest that we quickly get to a vote on this motion so that we can get back to the witness.