Finance committee  In my opinion, there are two wars going on with regard to ISIS. One is a war on the ground for territorial control, which we heard about this morning. The other is what we'll call “the war over jihadist principle”. That's the intention of ISIS, and it's in their public documents.

Finance committee  I think the key element we have to focus on is the intentions of the Islamic State. Let me just mention that Islamic laws require the giving of warnings to intended targets of jihad, of the Islamic religious warfare agenda. By the way, they always do that. They don't necessarily send it in English or French to particular email recipients, but they always issue a warning.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Let me make a non-political statement on this because one doesn't want to transform countering terrorism finance into a political party issue. I think the point is twofold. One is that at the time Saudi Arabia had not yet judged those mosques and that “current” of theology in Islam as being a threat to Islam.

Finance committee  Yes, I think there was an example of— By way of background, it was a Canadian branch of the Royal Bank of Canada that was taken over by Lebanese interests and was prosecuted in a private litigation—that's the important thing, that it was private—on the basis of an argument that that ex-Canadian bank, Lebanese-Canadian bank, was used to funnel resources to Hamas and Hezbollah.

Finance committee  Many of the so-called radical mosques originally were funded by Saudi sources, including Saudi public organizations such as the Muslim World League and other such organizations, and they cultivated a Wahhabi perspective, which itself became radicalized in the diaspora into support for some of the missions of al Qaeda and other groups.

Finance committee  Yes, this was a eulogy at the death of Crown Prince Sultan who passed away several years ago. It was mentioned how he was a very strong supporter of environmentalism, particularly environmental activism abroad, especially in jurisdictions that were producing oil and gas in competition with Saudi Arabia.

Finance committee  No. I wouldn't tie deep green resistance necessarily to the Iranians. We do know that an organization exists in British Columbia and Alberta called Deep Green Resistance. It's on the web, it is well known, and it is explicitly dedicated to political violence to overthrow capitalism, and specifically the oil and gas economy.

Finance committee  Yes, we have examples. One of the leading examples was and is Hezbollah, which we know from law enforcement and court cases has a particular presence in Canada. We also have from Hezbollah sources—I've published on this, and I believe I circulated the article, which is in print, to members of the committee—a list of Hezbollah organizations that in fact raise funds abroad and use the funds for Hezbollah purposes, including payments—call it subsidies—to families of martyrs.

Finance committee  I've identified that as one of the emergent issues of the greatest importance—capital g, capital r, e, a, t, e, s, t. I think it is extremely important, because it is the emergent methodology of terrorism financing precisely because the terrorists themselves believe they can evade detection.

Finance committee  I have a paper submitted for publication that will deal with that. But very briefly, on a complex issue that you've identified quite correctly, on the one hand, with the reduced prices, there's no question that Saudi Arabia has said explicitly that one of their purposes of the supply-management regime they created in OPEC to reduce prices was in effect to curtail the revenues of ISIS.

Finance committee  FINTRAC issues an annual report, of course, which was put out just recently. Frankly, I don't remember the precise numbers. At my age, the brain cells don't necessarily respond to the immediate question, but I believe the figures are relatively high. One of the challenges, of course, is that what FINTRAC is reporting are suspicious reports and reports that have been given to them, as well as things they've been able to intercept through their own methods.

Finance committee  I think you've raised a very important question. I think perhaps the Egmont Group may well want to participate both in the answer and in the solution. There's no question that funds are emerging from private, so to speak, sources or wealthy people in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates and going to fund activities involving political violence in Canada and elsewhere.

Finance committee  Yes, indeed, and not only in the RCMP, but in virtually the entire Canadian bureaucracy. We like generalists, not specialists. To get promoted, you're promoted as a generalist and not a specialist, which is precisely the point I'm trying to make on enhanced investigative capacity on the part of FINTRAC and the related components of the Canadian security and intelligence community.

Finance committee  Yes, thank you. In my opinion—and I'm not a lawyer, but I have studied the terrorism financing issue here in Canada—I think the two cases you just raised did challenge the Canadian Constitution and quite wisely, I think. The Canadian courts have determined they were unconstitutional, but after all, the information about terrorism financing doesn't necessarily derive from the lawyers serving different organizations.