Finance committee  It has to be clearly understood that the fight against terrorist financing has in a way come to be inseparable from the fight against money laundering. They start from the same premise, that money is the sinew of war. With that view, we feel that, by attacking their funds, we can disrupt some terrorist groups just as we can disrupt some criminal groups.

Finance committee  Before I talk about that, I would like to make a small clarification. For a while, we have been talking about terrorist financing and terrorism in the singular. However, there are extreme differences among the groups labelled as terrorist. We focus a lot on the Islamic State. But, for a number of years, the European Union’s terrorist list has run the gamut from three-person Italian anarchist groups to Hamas and FARC.

Finance committee  Thank you for your question. I happen to be part of those research networks that have been cut. I think the main point in understanding the value of empirical research on these issues is that, every single time, we try to look at both radicalization and the fight against radicalization.

Finance committee  Yes, as I was suggesting just now, it must be realized that a number of security measures come together. In other words, fighting terrorist funding can tie in with measures that also apply to the fight against money laundering, whether it is the proceeds of corruption, tax fraud, and so on.

Finance committee  In that respect, the main challenge is figuring out what types of financial vehicles are being used. If you go through the conventional banking system, transactions will go through the U.S., simply because those international transactions are in dollars and go through the corresponding banks, in the U.S. or in Canada.

Finance committee  Clearly, this is a huge area. As I mentioned earlier, we must always bear in mind the fight against terrorist financing as we know it today. I also talked about the two strategies. They are both targeted sanctions similar to the UN system and financial intelligence practices. Initially, the fight was against money laundering, but the terrorist financing aspect was added later.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members of the committee, in light of the research that I have done and that I continue to carry out in Europe and Canada on countering terrorist financing, I would like to take the few minutes I have to address a point of tension that defines the fight against terrorist financing.