Canada has become a hub of Islamist terror financing
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Summary
Aras Rafiq is the CEO of Quillium, an organization dedicated to fighting radicalization and terrorism in Canada. He has been on the board of Secure Canada, a group dedicated to combating terrorism and radicalization in Canada, and has worked with the Canadian government on counter-extremism efforts. In this episode, Aras talks about the role of Canada as a hub through which terrorist financing gets laundered, and how this money is used to spread Islamic extremism.
Transcript
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Over the last few months, the idea that the West had dealt with the issue of terrorism, especially
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Islamist-type terrorism, well, that has definitely fallen by the wayside, not only with the Hamas
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attacks against Israel on October 7th, but even more recently, not a Western country, the attack in
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Moscow. The shooting of missiles from Hezbollah in Lebanon into northern Israel, the Houthis,
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basically taking over the Red Sea shipping lanes. All of that showing that things are not exactly
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calm on the Western Front. A couple of weeks ago, I was at an event combating anti-Semitism
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when I heard a speaker make an interesting point. When it comes to terrorist financing and terrorism,
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Canada is a bit of a nexus. The man who said that joins us now. His name is Aras Rafiq. He is
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the CEO of Quillium. He is someone who has been on the board of Secure Canada here in this country,
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but also has advised American, British, French governments and agencies on dealing with
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radicalization and terrorism. He joins me now from Toronto. Thanks so much for the time,
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Aras. My pleasure, and thank you for having me on your show. It's an honor to be on.
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That statement about Canada being a nexus for terrorist financing, it surprised me to hear
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someone say it out in public quite like that. It's something that we've discussed. We've talked about
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some of the protests in this country being funded by outside sources to get people to show up,
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things like that. But what did you mean by that? Is Canada a place where terrorist financing gets
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laundered? Is Canada a place where terrorist financing is raised? How are we a nexus?
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So there was a time, and it still probably is pretty significant, that London, because of the laws,
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because of the finance laws and being the hub of the financial trade around the world at one time,
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was the hub through which money laundering, funding for terrorism, funding for extremism,
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has been the nexus and the hub. But over the last few years, and this is based on research that we've
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carried out with an organization called ISCAP, and other research that I've seen as well,
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Canada has actually become the place where money comes in from extremist organizations,
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and it's laundered, and it's then used for the spread of Islamism. And I think it's very important
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to just identify what I mean by Islamism. In the same way that there's a difference between social
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and socialism. There is a difference between Islam and Islamism. Social is the way that we interact,
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we can sit around a table, have a wonderful conversation, we can break bread. And socialism
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is a distinct political ideology that happens to be left of center. Islam is a religion that's,
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and I'm a Muslim myself, Islam is a religion that's practiced by just under two billion people
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around the world in so many different ways, and often excommunicating people who have different
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views and following it in a different way. Islamism is a distinct political ideology,
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and it's the term coined by the Muslim Brotherhood. In Arabic, they call themselves Islamiyud,
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to differentiate themselves from ordinary Muslims in Egypt at the time of their inception.
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Islamism is a distinct political ideology, and it wants to achieve two main things,
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and there is a third one which is a tactic. The first thing is that they want to actually
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set up a utopian Islamist state and enforce a version of law based on Sharia, their interpretation
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of Sharia, as state law across all of the citizens. The second thing then is to, it's an expansionist
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political ideology, and the second thing then is to spread that around the world. And of course I
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mentioned the third thing, which is a tactic, the third thing they want to do is to wipe Israel off
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the map. So that's what I mean by Islamism, a term that's coined by Islamists themselves,
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So really, there's been a real focus on the money coming in, being laundered to fund extremist,
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Islamist activities in Canada, and why is it important? Because of the easy access to the
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United States, and also to fund it around the world, as well as the other way around as well.
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We've heard through some great reporting by Sam Cooper, who has a small independent media outlet called
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the Bureau, or that when he was with Global News, he's done great reporting on the money laundering
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that's gone on in British Columbia, Vancouver in particular, dealing with Chinese money coming
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in, often triads, illegal gangs, sometimes money laundering happening with the blessing of the
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dictators in Beijing. In that, you know, even though it's often a government tied into it,
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there is a criminal element side of it as well. And that has been massive. They've used real estate,
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they've used casinos. But we haven't heard the same on this side. So are we talking about money
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coming in from Iran, money coming in to fund groups like Hamas or Hezbollah? Where does the money come
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from? And where does it end up? Sure. One of the biggest, by the way, the mechanisms that you've
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described are not exclusive to China. In 2015, I think it was the Canadian Department for Finance
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looked at vulnerabilities and looked at threats of terrorist funding coming in from a number of
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organizations and institutions around the world, Hamas being one of them, Hezbollah being another one,
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and identified similar mechanisms. And we can talk about that a little bit more. But the money
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really, at the moment, the biggest country, and we're talking billions, we're not talking hundreds
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of millions, the biggest funder of extremist Islamist activities, be they either in inverted
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commas non-violent or violent themselves, is Qatar. And they have a number of mechanisms through which
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the money's going out. But we did a report for ISCAP, the Institute for the Study of Global
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Antisemitism and Policy. And we identified that Qatar's sovereign wealth fund has in between
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$500 billion and $1 trillion of US dollars of assets through which they're spreading soft power
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influence and money going around the world to extremists and terrorist censors as well.
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And let's not forget that Qatar themselves, in the same way that people, your audience will know that
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when thinking of China, or the Chinese government rather, people think of the Chinese Communist Party.
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In the same way that we should be thinking about Qatar, in the same way where Qatar and the Muslim
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Brotherhood, there is no difference. The Muslim Brotherhood, which are the current ideologues
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behind groups like ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and what's coming next as well, and we really are at a moment
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with the protests and everything else that's happening. Qatar is the biggest funder of Islamist
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indoctrination of Islamist activities around the world, including Canada. So that's really a country
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that we should be looking at very, very closely.
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So even though most of us have been thinking about talking about Iran, Qatar is the bigger threat.
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At this moment in time, Qatar is a bigger threat. Let's not forget, and I'll explain why that is.
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I mentioned that Qatar is the Muslim Brotherhood and Qatar are the same. Let's not forget Hamas,
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in their own charter, basically called themselves the Palestinian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood.
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Let's not forget that the Muslim Brotherhood inspired groups like Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Al-Shabaab,
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many of these other Islamist organizations, terrorist organizations around the world. Without the
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ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, there would be no Islamist terrorist activity.
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And Qatar is a country that's been quietly getting on with what they want to do, with what they need
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to do in terms of spreading their indoctrination around the world through money. Qatar also hosted,
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and some of it not so quiet, Qatar funded Hamas for many, many years. Qatar hosted the Taliban.
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Let's not forget that the senior leaders of Hamas have been in Doha, in Qatar, for many,
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many years. Qatar has been quietly getting on, and sometimes I mention not so quietly,
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getting on with what they want to do for years. We still need to look at Iran for different reasons,
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but let's not forget that Qatar shares the same ideology that Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab,
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So, let me ask you then. You're describing this country as a small peninsula in the Middle East,
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tiny compared to some of its neighboring countries in terms of geography, but obviously a lot of money.
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We hear about leadership in places like Saudi Arabia trying to move away from anything that would promote
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the Muslim Brotherhood ideology. Some have actually said they want a new form of Islam
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because they worry about what is going on in terms of radicalization, and they see it as a threat to
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their own hold on power. If that is true, and correct me if I'm wrong or if you have a different
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interpretation of what's happening in UAE or Saudi, if that's true, why would Qatar be going in the
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So, I went to Saudi Arabia two years ago after 27 years, and I've been going quite a lot over the last
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couple of years. And I went after 27 years because it probably wasn't safe for me to go
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prior to two years ago. And the reason for that was that I've been in this area of work now for
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20 years coming up too. And in the past, I have been extremely critical of countries like Saudi Arabia
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for growing and funding Islamism, the Muslim Brotherhood, and all these entities around the
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world for decades. But it was safe for me to go two years ago. And what I've seen now really ties in
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with what you've explained. I would even go to say that the Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, when it comes to
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Islamist extremism and Islamist terrorism, and I'm not talking about other things, I'm specifically
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talking about extremism and terrorism, is more moderate than parts of London in the United
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That's because the, and that's a statement that I, and I've been there for three times,
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three, sorry, I've been there a number of times over the last two years. Saudi Arabia, parts of
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Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, Jeddah, is less extremist when it comes to Islamism than parts of London in the
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United Kingdom. And I would say parts of Toronto as well, because, again, in the last year, this is
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my third visit to Toronto. So there are various things and very, very things I've seen and sort
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of investigated here also. The reason for that is that, look, in 2015, MBS, Mohammed bin Salman,
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the Crown Prince, really has been a force of reform and moderation. They've got a long way to go yet,
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but they've really, really got a lot of reforms in place very, very quickly. And I wanted to see it
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for myself, and I have. And it's actually, there are issues still, but it's actually working.
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They've made it illegal in Saudi Arabia for anybody to be a member of any entity,
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but for the Muslim Brotherhood and any entity that's inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood,
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and that includes Hamas, they're rounding people up and locking them up for terrorism. Now, in a liberal
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secular democracy, I'm not saying that's what we should be doing, but that's what they're doing.
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So it is actually illegal to support the Muslim Brotherhood in Saudi Arabia. Secondly, you've got
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the United Arab Emirates, who, with Bahrain and Morocco, led the way in signing the Abraham Accord
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and normalising relationships with Israel and sort of trading and getting on with really paving the
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way for peace in the Middle East. And again, in the UA, in the majority of the UA, because there are
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some parts of the UA, because it's different emirates that are still struggling with this notion,
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but certainly in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, it is illegal to be a supporter or a member of groups such as the
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Muslim Brotherhood and its derivatives. These countries originally were, and I've said this
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many times in the past, through finance, through support, through creating entities, were a big,
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big part of the problem. Now, I believe they have to be part of the solution. And the second part of
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your question about Qatar. So in 2015, when Mohammed bin Salman really started coming into his own,
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Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and other Gulf countries started to actually display signs of
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antagonism towards Qatar because of the way that the Muslim Brotherhood is integrated into society
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there. Late Yusuf Qaradawi, who was banned from entry into the United Kingdom, into other parts of the
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world for his anti-Semitic and pro-jihadist suicide bombing views, lived there and died there. They
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gave refuge to him. And in fact, the current leader of Qatar referred to him as, in inverted commas,
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my sheikh, my teacher. Now, Qatar in 2015 was identified by these local Arab countries. In 2017,
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there was a blockade and trying to force Qatar to get rid of its affiliations with Muslim Brotherhood
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and Islamist linked entities. The blockade didn't work. What did Qatar do? Qatar actually turned to
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Iran, turned to Turkey, turned to other countries. And then now we have a situation where the blockade
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didn't work. And now, um, uh, cause I tried to do certain things and did, uh, you know, it just didn't
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work. So Qatar is now in inverted commas friends again with these countries, but going its own path
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and a small country, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, um, uh, per capita is using this soft
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power game, if you like. And I'm, and I say game in inverted commas, cause it's very, very serious.
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It's, it's more serious than just a game to spread its influence around the world because it wants to
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be taken as a serious player in what's coming, what's happening in the Middle East and around the world.
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And actually it's something that Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and the rest of
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the world really, really needs to work us on. It should be worried.
00:17:15.620
Well, they're currently part of the team of small team of nations that's trying to negotiate a
00:17:21.760
ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Um, that gives them a certain level of stature that they
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didn't have before, before it was, you know, Egypt, of course, all long part of any negotiations
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involving Israel and its neighbors. But now, now to have Qatar in there, it's, it raises
00:17:41.940
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, I remember after the terrorist attacks on October the
00:17:47.500
7th, uh, that Hamas instigated, um, um, in Israel. Um, I remember having a conversation
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with some very serious, um, um, uh, people who investigate, um, these activities and keep,
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uh, as safe around the world. And, and, uh, I remember saying at the time, Qatar will use,
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uh, this is an opportunity to try and give themselves a more of a status. And they'll
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say, we are the people that will negotiate the deals. We are the people that are able
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to have the backdoor, um, uh, discussions with groups like, uh, Hamas. We are the people
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that were able to host the Taliban for, um, all through the, uh, the time when NATO was
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in, was in Afghanistan looking for Al-Qaeda, et cetera. Uh, we are the people that are able
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to, um, negotiate with the people that you, that you don't like or, you know, the rest
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of the world should be afraid of. And they've played this game very, very well. What I'd
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rather see them do is to either, uh, hand over the leaders of Hamas to, uh, the authorities
00:18:59.740
or whoever it is, whether some people say Israel, but I'm saying more of, you know, the, the
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alliance, uh, uh, um, if it's not appropriate for them to hand them over to Israel because
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they may be worried about, um, uh, what their own population may do. Maybe there could be a
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force, an alliance of Western countries, uh, that could actually take these leaders and
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actually start negotiating directly. Why do we need Qatar to negotiate? The second thing
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I'd want them to do is expel all Islamist linked entities and organizers, sorry, organizations
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that they're hosting and giving safe haven to either, either. And if they haven't committed
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a crime, if they committed a crime, hand them over for arrest. But if they haven't committed
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a crime, expel them, you can't live, make a big statement. You cannot live in our country.
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But of course they won't do that because by doing that, they'd actually be going against
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the very ideology that they actually believe in themselves all throughout their own, uh,
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civil society to the institutions that govern the country.
00:20:03.260
What you just described of them using this to, uh, uh, their advantage to try and gain stature.
00:20:11.400
That sounds like the arsonist showing up to put out the fire and declaring themselves a
00:20:15.960
hero. I totally agree. I totally agree. Um, yeah, you know, I, it's, it's, I look, I'm
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not saying that they are responsible for, uh, in this instance, the attack, uh, on October
00:20:27.700
the 7th. I'm not, I'm not saying that I think that would be wrong to say that, but what they
00:20:31.480
have done is provided to use your analogy, given the arsonist, the material that the arsonist
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can use to actually go and, uh, start a fire. That's the, that's the subtle difference between
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the arsonist and the person that says here, have the, have the material, have the, the
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kerosene, the petrol, or even the matches or the lighter or whatever it is. They've created
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this safe haven in the region for Islamist entities to, to, to, to, to operate. One of the
00:21:02.640
things, Brian, you know, people often talk about Islamist terrorism and they say, oh,
00:21:07.760
let's, they'll talk about Al-Qaeda in the past and say Al-Qaeda terrorism and Al-Qaeda
00:21:12.560
extremism. And they'll talk about ISIS. Um, um, and now the, what comes next? And, and that's,
00:21:19.100
I think is very important to touch on as well. Let's not forget that Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas,
00:21:25.760
all of these groups did not cause extremism. Extremism, Islamist extremism influenced and
00:21:35.200
caused and allowed these organizations to exist. It's the Islamist extremism that inspired
00:21:40.980
these organizations, not the other way around. And Qatar has been hosting groups like the Taliban
00:21:45.620
and Hamas there for a long time. Well, the Hamas leadership, while complaining about the,
00:21:51.220
the plate of civilians in Rafa, um, are living in five-star accommodations in Qatar right now.
00:21:57.300
Um, the best hotels I'm told. Mm. Billionaires. I mean, Hamas has billionaires, more, probably
00:22:05.340
more billionaires than, uh, um, per capita, uh, than any other organization institution in the
00:22:14.400
world. Every single, there's a, there's a concept. And we're talking about financing and
00:22:20.880
terrorism again. And we talked about, I've mentioned a little bit about the money coming
00:22:24.500
into Canada, um, the money laundering it. And we, I will expand on that, but let's not also forget
00:22:30.440
the money going the other way as well. There, there, there are people, whenever something happens
00:22:36.460
in the region, and I get it as a Muslim myself, as a human myself, human being myself, I get it.
00:22:44.380
And when people actually want to give money to, to, to, to try and alleviate suffering around the
00:22:51.500
world, and there are innocent people in Gaza right now, who as a result of what Hamas did, and, and now,
00:22:57.780
uh, Israel's retaliation, um, that are suffering. When money has been going for Gaza, there has been a
00:23:07.760
clear system of people, uh, taking their cut, uh, including Hamas. Um, and so for every $1 that may
00:23:17.860
go over to, for aid, uh, to organizations and charities and institutions, uh, to support the, uh,
00:23:26.060
the plight of Palestinians, some of that money goes to directly to groups like Hamas and Palestinian
00:23:34.300
Islamic jihad. So the money's been going the other way around as well. And these guys have been,
00:23:38.420
whether that's from individuals and whether that's from agencies and, you know, we've seen some of the
00:23:42.280
stuff with UNRWA recently. Um, and the fact that there have been many members of staff in UNRWA who
00:23:47.120
actually belong to organizations like Hamas and operational for them and have been operational for
00:23:51.360
them. There's been a big cut of money. There is a big cut of money, a big slice that goes for
00:23:58.740
assistance to, for Palestinians in the region that goes to these guys. And these guys are,
00:24:04.300
not just, uh, some of the, some of these guys has been estimated, um, in a four billion,
00:24:10.400
are worth $4 billion, $5 billion. That's, that's, that's extremely hypocritical for them to sit in
00:24:17.320
their five-star hotels and, and, and, and lament the suffering of people that are dying in Palestine
00:24:22.880
and Gaza, uh, whilst they're enjoying their, you know, their, their, their steaks and, uh, living a
00:24:31.240
life of luxury, you know, it's, uh, it's extremely hypocritical, but that's, that's how it works.
00:24:36.220
We need to get, take a quick break, but, uh, when we come back, Harris, I'd like to talk to you more
00:24:41.340
about this money laundering, the money coming in, the money coming out of Canada. Is it paying for
00:24:46.060
the protests, which are global and were instantaneously well-organized? We'll talk about
00:24:51.840
all of that when we come back. So if Canada is a nexus for terrorist financing, where does it come
00:24:58.680
from? Where does it go to? That, I guess, becomes the main question. Uh, Harris, we're talking about
00:25:06.040
money coming in and you mentioned Hamas, Hezbollah, some of the groups. Is Qatar laundering money here
00:25:11.880
to take away the, the, the scent of where it comes from? Is Iran laundering money here to,
00:25:18.040
to make it seem legitimate when it goes out to different organizations? Yeah. But when we,
00:25:23.360
when we look at the money laundering, uh, process and we look at, uh, specifically how money is
00:25:29.200
laundered to, um, to clean it from, from countries, uh, whether it's Qatar, Iran, China, whoever,
00:25:35.900
whoever it is, there's really four, four key parts of the process. The first part is obviously the
00:25:42.560
source. And that's the source that's coming from countries such as, as, um, uh, Qatar, Iran,
00:25:48.300
uh, China, et cetera, um, and others as well. And then we've got the second part of the process,
00:25:54.780
which is the placement. And that's actually putting the money into some sort of financial system.
00:26:01.340
And Qatar, for example, is, is using, um, I guess, three or four main, uh, entities for this. Uh,
00:26:10.960
they have the sovereign wealth fund. So, uh, which is the QI investment, Qatar investment,
00:26:16.840
um, authority. Uh, and then they have, uh, the, um, uh, the, the, the actual, um, uh, another source,
00:26:27.800
which is Qatar foundation, which is the education. Uh, then they have the humanitarian, which is,
00:26:33.880
uh, Qatar charity. And then there's the development arm, which is the Qatar fund.
00:26:40.960
And that's where the placement part of this, of this, of this, uh, strategy is going. Uh,
00:26:46.640
then what we're finding is that, um, the third part, which is layering, that's the transferring
00:26:52.920
to money as of, of the money. Once it's in the financial system, transferring in to, to conceal
00:26:58.700
the origins of the funds. And there are groups and organizations in Canada itself, because Canada
00:27:05.340
has, Canada is the second, I think, I believe the second largest country in the world.
00:27:10.520
I think it's the 10th, uh, current, I think as of last year, I think it was the 10th largest
00:27:16.240
economy in the world, if not mistaken. Canada has its federal law, but it also has 13 provinces
00:27:24.600
slash territories, which will operate a lot of the, um, uh, the way that they look at financial
00:27:31.660
crime in different ways. It's much, the United Kingdom, London, the whole of the United Kingdom,
00:27:37.420
for example, which has been the nexus, um, has one law throughout England, Scotland,
00:27:43.420
Wales, and the United Kingdom, uh, Northern Ireland, when it, when it comes to financial
00:27:47.620
crime and, um, financial issues. Canada has 13 provinces that differ slightly.
00:27:54.240
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, if you're using a, a, a bank, then that is a federal institution,
00:28:02.140
but there are, uh, for example, credit unions. Yeah. Or case populares, as they're called in
00:28:09.020
Quebec, which are provincially regulated. And while they would fall under some federal law
00:28:16.240
for reporting, there are, there's provincial laws that are mainly covering them.
00:28:21.380
Exactly. Exactly. So it's, it's, it's actually easier for the placement. And then the next phase,
00:28:29.020
which is the layering, transferring the money to conceal the origins of the funds. And there
00:28:34.100
are charities, uh, there are, um, um, organizations which say and claim they working for, they work
00:28:41.960
on the development of Islam. There could be organizations which are, uh, specifically and
00:28:46.660
primarily set up for education. Uh, there could be cas, casinos. I, you mentioned, see, it seems at
00:28:53.100
odds, you know, for Islamist entities to actually layer money in casinos, but it actually is happening.
00:28:59.580
Then you've got a whole bunch of other organizations and institutions which fall into the wider civil
00:29:05.860
society, uh, bracket. And then what happens is that that money will then go into the United States.
00:29:13.860
That money will go into London. That money will go into higher education and billion, and, and, and
00:29:19.420
this gap right now, uh, is actually, I mean, this gap looked at, um, I think it's got found in the
00:29:25.960
United States. Um, there were, uh, there were over four, four and a half billion dollars of
00:29:33.860
unreg, unreported, um, uh, money that had gone to universities in the United States.
00:29:40.420
There was a federal investigation, uh, that was layered out around, uh, across,
00:29:45.760
that was spread to, and this is primarily from, uh, Muslim brotherhood inspired entities,
00:29:50.400
Casa being the main player. Uh, that, that, that investigation was expanded. And I think the
00:29:56.100
Department of Education, um, got that figure up to about 18 billion or 19 billion if memory serves
00:30:01.360
me right. Uh, and then when President Biden, uh, became President Biden, uh, that investigation
00:30:07.560
was stopped. But this gap has continued and found billions and billions of undocumented,
00:30:14.120
unreported money that's gone into universities in the United States. Uh, and this is interesting
00:30:19.000
because we're going to talk about protests in a minute and, and, and the response to, um,
00:30:23.560
October the 7th from organizations, um, um, that claim to be student-led. Um, well, actually,
00:30:30.620
they are student-led, um, but billions of dollars have also come into Canada. Uh, ISCAP is actually,
00:30:38.820
and I don't want to mention the amounts or the numbers because ISCAP is, and I'm part of the team,
00:30:42.880
ISCAP is actually looking at that at this very moment, uh, at this moment, specifically with higher
00:30:47.380
education. Uh, billions of dollars has come into Canada, into universities as well. And that money then
00:30:56.300
becomes integrated for use for things that may seem innocuous, such as higher education, activities of
00:31:04.380
students, relief work, charity work, um, building, uh, mosques, building other places, community
00:31:11.580
centers, et cetera. Uh, and again, side note, mosques aren't necessarily the place. And there are good
00:31:19.200
mosques and there are mosques that are not Islamist as there are mosques that are Islamist. Radicalization
00:31:25.280
does not, Islamist terrorism and extremism is not happening in the mosques anymore. They don't need
00:31:32.200
to, it's happening online, uh, and it's happening in other places, but money is being filtered and sent
00:31:39.700
through these organizations, institutions, so that it's integrated into either Canada or spread around
00:31:45.760
the world. There's one charity who I won't mention. Money's coming in, the name I won't mention at this
00:31:50.260
stage. Money's coming in from Qatar and we're talking hundreds of millions. We're not talking,
00:31:55.980
uh, small amounts. It's coming into Canada. It's as part of this process mechanism, the source,
00:32:02.540
the placement, the layering is going to a charity. And that charity is spending that money here in
00:32:08.180
Canada, but also sending tens of millions of dollars to the UK and tens of millions of dollars
00:32:15.020
to actually a bit more than that, uh, uh, nearly hundreds of millions of dollars to the United
00:32:18.780
States and other places around the world as well. Yeah. I do want to relate this partly to the
00:32:27.320
protests because the protests that are often described as pro-Palestinian, and I describe them
00:32:35.180
as pro-Hamas because I've been to too many of them to believe otherwise at this point, right? Never heard
00:32:41.080
one call for a release of hostages, one call for Hamas to agree to a ceasefire. Um, you know,
00:32:48.600
all, all the calls and chants are, are aimed at, at Israel. Um, the little Satan, as the Iranians
00:32:55.060
would say. And we, myself and my colleagues have been looking and trying to find the source of these
00:33:03.540
funds. Uh, we believe Qatar and Iran are behind it, but have not seen the proof yet. Yeah.
00:33:10.440
And the reason that I ask is the, these are not grassroots protest movements that sprung up in
00:33:16.920
Toronto, in Montreal, in London, in Washington, DC, in, you know, cities around the Western world.
00:33:27.040
They, some of them were organized with slick graphics, calling out people to protest on October
00:33:33.600
7th. On October 7th, there were immediate social media campaigns come to this protest in Montreal.
00:33:40.440
Tomorrow, October 8th. In Toronto, it was October 9th and in so on and so forth. And you see this
00:33:47.560
around the world and they are far too organized for there not to be money behind it.
00:33:55.380
No, absolutely. You know, I, I remember, um, when Osama bin Laden was, was, was killed. Um,
00:34:07.920
I remember, um, having a meeting with one of my senior members with a very, very senior civil servant
00:34:13.700
bureaucrat. And he turned around to us and said, Hey, job done. We've won. The war is won. We've defeated
00:34:21.920
Islamist terrorism. And myself and my, my colleagues, we just looked at each other and we tried to explain
00:34:29.060
to him how it wasn't. And we, we actually did a paper called, it's the ideology, stupid.
00:34:34.840
When I, we have, that was a public paper. We published it, but we were waiting for the next
00:34:41.200
incarnate. What's coming next? You know, there were pockets of Al-Shabaab. Okay. That was happening
00:34:46.320
primarily in Africa, Boko Haram. Uh, but what's the next global Islamist terrorist entity?
00:34:54.900
Of course, ISIS declared the Islamic state and that became the next global, um, um, um,
00:35:03.300
entity that is inspiring Islamist terrorism. When Baghdadi was killed, similar exercise again,
00:35:11.260
and myself and a lot of colleagues and some very, very serious people around the world that we've
00:35:17.500
been advising and working with have been waiting for what comes next. We're at that
00:35:24.720
moment that what comes next. Initially, my working, my working hypothesis was, um, that we called it
00:35:33.960
Hamas international in inverted commas. And there are elements of that, what I call, um, Islamism beyond
00:35:41.560
Islamist. What, and I will, and I will touch on the money part, but I think it's very important
00:35:47.600
because this will explain the phenomenon a little bit that you mentioned, how they were ready on October,
00:35:54.580
the 7th, October the 8th. Of course there was intelligence, there was chatter, there were people
00:35:58.760
that knew what was going on. Of course, all of that was, was the case, but what Hamas, and, and we can
00:36:06.240
talk about, I asked myself the question on October the 7th, why now, why did Hamas do this now?
00:36:13.640
And what are they hoping to achieve? Well, the why now, I genuinely believe, this is my analysis, I genuinely
00:36:20.620
believe the why now was to try and derail the potential probable normalization process that could have
00:36:29.440
happened between other countries in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and Israel. What have they
00:36:37.120
achieved? And what were they hoping to achieve? I think that they were hoping that the Iranian proxies
00:36:41.860
would jump in and support them. So they're hoping as Hezbollah would attack from the north and the
00:36:47.740
Houthis, well, the Houthis have done pockets of, of, uh, of assistance in inverted commas, but that never
00:36:53.480
really materialized. That didn't happen in the way that I believe that they expected it and possibly were
00:36:59.700
even promised that it would happen. But the other elements of what they've achieved, they've achieved
00:37:05.760
something akin to what Adolf Hitler did in the 1930s. After World War One and the depression in,
00:37:15.440
in Germany and, uh, and the Republic that in Germany, that was probably one of the most liberal
00:37:19.960
republics in Europe, that Europe has ever seen. Germany was suffering and Germany was suffering in,
00:37:27.280
in a way that there was economic suffering, people weren't happy, et cetera, et cetera. But Hitler
00:37:32.540
was able to take, was, was, was able to unite a significant percentage. And by the way,
00:37:39.040
one only needs 25%, a study showed that needs 25, support from 25% of a population to actually
00:37:46.980
mobilize the population into extremist, um, uh, actions. But he was able to take the far left
00:37:53.620
policies from Mussolini. He was able to take the populist policies from the far right of Germany
00:38:01.980
and was able to unite, uh, uh, a population that was, was, had a grievance, um, against a common
00:38:11.260
enemy. And it happened to be initially the Jews. Let's not forget, as, uh, Elie Wiesel said,
00:38:16.900
the late Elie Wiesel said, what starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews. And of course,
00:38:22.100
we, we know that in Germany at the time, Hitler started with the Jews and we had the show and
00:38:26.220
the Holocaust, but then expanded to, uh, Poland and other countries. And we had World War II.
00:38:33.040
What Hamas has been able to do, and this is what I've been calling Hamas International,
00:38:36.920
uh, uh, right now, is to get people from the left, people from the regressive left, get people
00:38:46.980
from the far right, not the populist, but the populist, but the actual far right. And Islamists,
00:38:53.640
I'm sorry, Muslims, not just Islamists now, um, unite them with a common cause, with a common enemy,
00:39:01.540
with anti-Semitism being the fuel of the masses that's driving them. And what we're worried about
00:39:07.800
now in the United Kingdom and around the world is that we're at that what next moment, because we're
00:39:16.760
seeing a significant population of people who are in the protest that are angry, that actually,
00:39:24.640
actually, one of the interesting things in the United Kingdom, the official figures that I've seen,
00:39:30.620
you know, 60% plus of the people that are attending the protest aren't actually even Muslim.
00:39:36.380
Um, no, and I would say the same here in Toronto.
00:39:40.960
Yeah, and this is, this is the phenomenon, the unification of the, the way that this brand
00:39:47.440
Hamas International has managed to unify the far left, the far right, and Muslims, who for 1400 years
00:39:54.600
ago, by the way, the different types of Muslims, uh, have been, uh, cursing each other for not being
00:39:59.440
proper Muslims. And it's not just Sunni Shia, even within Sunni, there's Wahhabi, there's Salafi,
00:40:03.580
there's, uh, there's, uh, Muslim Brotherhood, there's Jamaat-Islami, there's the Sufis,
00:40:08.540
the Bareluis, many others, who for 1400 years have said, ah, you're not proper Muslims,
00:40:13.500
brought them all together in very, very slick campaigns. You know, in the United Kingdom,
00:40:19.980
Nick Griffin is the far right. He's the former leader of the British National Party,
00:40:23.380
of the National Front, uh, the, the leader of the, the Knights of the Templar Patriots,
00:40:28.340
working with Muslim Islamist organizations, who are also working with the far left. That's the
00:40:35.880
phenomenon that's happening. And the what comes next, because Al-Qaeda and ISIS did not radicalize
00:40:43.240
anybody. What they did, they took people that were radicalized in civil society through, through,
00:40:50.880
through, through anger, through frustration, through not belonging to, not having an identity,
00:40:55.760
to having charismatic recruiters, giving them, um, solutions to their problems, for grievances,
00:41:00.980
some often manufactured. Al-Qaeda, ISIS took people that were radicalized to a non-violent space
00:41:09.760
and then tipped some of them over the edge. The volume of the people and the way that this triple
00:41:15.300
threat has actually come together, the regressive left, the far right, and Islamist theocracies,
00:41:19.740
the way that it's come together is a massive, massive, huge boost to the what comes next,
00:41:29.140
which won't be centralized, it'll be decentralized. Canada will, will, and mark my words, Canada will
00:41:36.500
have its violent problem of, um, violence which is inspired by Islamism, the terrorism. It's, it's,
00:41:43.780
just as every other country will, because of what's happened. But it will be decentralized,
00:41:48.320
but, and so it won't be command and control like ISIS was, um, um, uh, and Al-Qaeda has been,
00:41:56.260
but it will be all inspired against a common enemy, initially, the Jews in Israel, but more so the
00:42:03.000
West. That has taken some serious funding. That funding has come from a number of mechanisms through
00:42:10.180
the process that I mentioned. Some of that money has been coming from the left itself, from, uh, from the
00:42:15.900
far left, um, um, trade unions and various people. Some of that money has been coming from elements of,
00:42:21.620
of the right, shall we say, the far right, uh, the actual fascist far right, but a lot of money has been
00:42:26.820
coming in from proxies who have been part of the process I mentioned from the Middle East. Qatar and Iran
00:42:33.460
have been, or rather, should we say, people from Qatar and Iran have been playing a leading role in that.
00:42:41.000
Unreal. Uh, this conversation could go on for much longer for us, and I, I wish we could continue,
00:42:48.880
but we've got to end it there. Um, uh, encourage people to, to check out your work and continue to,
00:42:57.120
If I may say, in, in, in the United, in Canada, uh, Secure Canada is an organization that I recently
00:43:04.800
joined the board of. And by the way, I don't join, um, I get invited to join the board of
00:43:10.460
companies around the world regularly. Um, and I turn most of them down because I don't have the
00:43:16.360
time. Uh, but Secure Canada is an organization that I have decided to join because of the people
00:43:21.120
involved and because of the opportunity that we have in Canada, because Canada is only, Canada is
00:43:26.540
behind us in the UK. We made mistakes. We did some things very good, very well. Um, and also support,
00:43:32.580
uh, Secure Canada and also the work of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy,
00:43:37.180
who've been looking primarily, um, doing a lot of work on sort of decodifying how antisemitism works,
00:43:43.280
but recently looking at Qatar's financing of higher education. These are two organizations
00:43:49.280
that I would recommend that people do look at it. All right. Will do. Thank you very much for your
00:43:55.400
time. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Full Comment is a post-media podcast. My name's
00:44:00.660
Brian Lilley, your host. This episode was produced by Andre Pru with theme music by Bryce Hall.
00:44:05.460
Kevin Libin is the executive producer. You can subscribe to the Full Comment podcast on
00:44:10.340
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00:44:21.880
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