Finance committee  Mr. Chair, good morning. Good morning to you as well, my fellow panellists and everybody else there. My name is Haras Rafiq, and I'm the managing director of the Quilliam Foundation, one of the world's major think tanks looking at combatting extremism and terrorism. I want to bring to this gathering today anecdotal, academic-based research, and evidence-based research, as well as observational research and analysis as to why this study into the impact of terrorist financing is not just important but vital and crucial.

Finance committee  First of all, thank you for agreeing with me on the fact that this may well be a partial inquiry—we don't look at everything—and I really value your support in looking at this from a holistic perspective. There are a number of studies and factors we can take into consideration.

Finance committee  One of the worst things the Canadian government can do is to make the mistakes we've made in the U.K., which have been, first of all, to look at this problem purely through the lens of criminality and legislation. By doing that, we as a government have tried to legislate our way out of these problems.

Finance committee  Typically we look at the Afghanistan so-called jihad. We saw that the typical age of people going out to join that jihad was between 25 and 35. We're now finding within the western world—this is in North America, Europe, and Australasia—that the age range has come down to between 14 and 25, and approximately 10% of the people who are going out to Iraq and Syria are women.

Finance committee  Absolutely both. We live in a globalized world. One of the most effective recruiting social media accounts, until it was closed down on Twitter, was called “Shami Witness”. Nobody knew who this person was initially, but he was arrested a few months ago. He was an individual who didn't actually belong to al Qaeda, ISIL, or anybody else.

Finance committee  If we look at the way terrorist entities operate, the way they generate money, in the past a lot of their money used to come from certain countries in the Middle East, from wealthy individuals, donors, etc. Many of these countries have stopped financing, not because they've had some sort of spiritual epiphany but because the very same people they were financing in the past are now threatening their own standing within their own countries.

Finance committee  I want to give you a quote from the former head of MI6, Richard Dearlove, who described groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood as being, at heart, terrorist organizations. It is clear that a substantial number of British charities belong to the darker side of the global Muslim Brotherhood network.

Finance committee  If you look at the way the U.K. government has tackled this problem, it has made some mistakes. Post-2005 and the terrorist attacks in London, we developed a strategy that was called preventing violent extremism. The governments at the time decided they would initially centralize and provide in the region of £80 million to £90 million and then focus that money locally through local councils and local governments to try to get people to work locally, and to empower a number of organizations to do the research locally and on a national level as well.

Finance committee  Absolutely, there are still countries that are supporting extremist and terrorist organizations around the world.

Finance committee  Yes, absolutely.

Finance committee  For me it's very clear. if somebody is about to break the law, if somebody is preparing to break the law and commit a crime, that comes under “protect” and not under “prevent”. That should be the police's responsibility. The police should get involved in protecting our communities and, if somebody has committed a crime, pursuing the criminals and ensuring that they face the due diligence.

Finance committee  My area of expertise is Islamist radicalization and Islamist terrorism. Certainly at the top of the list would be Qatar. Either directly—not so much as before, because of pressure from coalition partners, especially the U.S.A.—or through private individuals, Qatar is still funding both terrorist entities in places such as Mali and elsewhere and Islamist organizations in places such as Canada, the rest of North America, and the U.K.

Finance committee  We have Iran and we have individuals in Saudi Arabia. We have some individuals in Kuwait, and mainly Middle Eastern countries. The two countries that I would say are not as bad as the others are certainly the United Arab Emirates and perhaps, in a fashion, Jordan. Actually, Jordan isn't as bad now as a country, but I would say all of the others are certainly playing their role.

Finance committee  No, I think we are not. I think we need to put more pressure on them. I think we need to exercise whatever tools we have at our disposal to actually make sure that they desist in this direct or indirect support for either Islamist or terrorist organizations around the world. In many cases, some of these countries are fighting proxy wars.

Finance committee  First of all, the threat is real. We have a team that monitors and follows these individuals in Iraq and Syria, and we work with a number of agencies around the world to provide support. I can go on the record now and say that there are stories of 9-year-olds, 12-year-olds, 14-year-olds, and 16-year-olds who have been either beheading people or shooting people between their eyes and killing them.