Justice committee  I think one place where the federal government does have a role is providing more examples in Canadian and world history of the consequences of hatred, which should be included in the resources that the federal government makes available online, especially. There is already a Ca

Justice committee  I'm not certain if it's been in Canada, but the President of Azerbaijan, for instance, once tweeted that the enemy of Azerbaijan was the Armenian diaspora, or all the Armenian people. He tweeted this in the English language for everyone to see. It's hard to know whether he was s

Justice committee  No, I'm sorry.

Justice committee  Very quickly, I'd like to speak about the issue of cyber-vandalism and the reporting of that, which was something I brought up before. If someone were to, on a hate-motivated basis, physically vandalize a structure belonging to the Armenian community, I would know how to report

Justice committee  Thank you. My thanks to the chair and the members of the committee for inviting the Armenian National Committee of Canada to provide evidence to you today. My name is Shahen Mirakian and I am the President of the Armenian National Committee of Canada. I apologize for not being a

Canadian Heritage committee  Absolutely. I couldn't agree more.

Canadian Heritage committee  Sure. Again, I don't want to make it seem like funding is the solution to every problem, but certainly government has tools that it can offer to communities to create capacity for those communities to set themselves up and organize themselves as more than just organizations that

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm not sure I'm necessarily the authority to speak on behalf of my organization on that specific matter of policy, but I will say that one of the most important ways in which we protect human rights and recognize human rights is when they become priorities for government. When s

Canadian Heritage committee  It's important that all ministries and all government agencies recognize that Canada is diverse. We recognize, certainly, that we have diversity in gender and things of that sort because it is 2016, or whatever. Similarly, I think it's important to recognize that Canada is a cul

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you. I'm going to respond in English, because I'm more familiar with English than French. About four years ago, the Armenian National Committee of Canada had an opportunity to reconsider its mandate. We spent a long time thinking about it. Rather than being a group that ju

Canadian Heritage committee  Absolutely. In April 2015, the House of Commons passed motion number 587, which recognized the month of April as Genocide Remembrance, Condemnation and Prevention Month. In April 2016, we were involved in efforts to have the various communities get together to recognize that mont

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee for inviting the Armenian National Committee of Canada to provide evidence to you today. My name is Shahen Mirakian, and I am president of the Armenian National Committee of Canada. I apologize for not being able to join you i