Madam Speaker, inaction is a choice. The Liberal government's intentional decision to do nothing and allow Samidoun to not only continue to operate on Canadian soil but enjoy tax exemptions on its income as a federally registered non-profit is reprehensible.

Since my initial question to the government on September 20, calling for it to take action to ban Samidoun, arrest leader Khaled Barakat for inciting violence and hatred, and list Samidoun as the terrorist organization that it is, October 7 has passed. On that sombre day, when our Jewish brothers and sisters were grieving the most heinous, horrific and deadly attack on Jews since the Holocaust, what did Samidoun do? It celebrated.

It put up posters for a rally in my city of Toronto under a headline of “Long live October 7”. In Vancouver, it glorified terrorism by literally chanting, “we are Hamas and we are Hezbollah”; these are literal terrorist groups. It also desecrated our Canadian national flag by lighting it on fire. When is enough, enough?

This terrorist-affiliated, terrorist-supporting organization does not even bother to hide it anymore. Before, it would at least pretend to not hate Jews and just claim it was all about anti-Zionism. It just hated Zionists, which, unfortunately, we know is code for Jews. However, every incident of hatred left intentionally unanswered by the government has emboldened the organization.

On October 7, in addition to celebrating literal terrorist groups, Samidoun chanted, “Death to Canada. Death to the United States. And death to Israel.” The people at Samidoun have shown us who they are, and one of the things they have shown us is not only that they hate Jews, but they hate Canada and Canadians.

Why does the government make the choice to allow them to turn Canada into their base of operations to promote terrorism and hatred? Inaction is a choice, and the intentional decision to allow these blatant acts of hatred and incitement of violence is a choice by the Liberal government that puts Canadians in danger. What will it take for the government to stop choosing to allow this to continue?

Being a doormat is not a policy, and the government's tepid condemnation of hate on our soil, with claims of “this is not who we are” or “hate has no place in Canada”, is worthless, when it, with all the resources and authority available to it as a G7 national government, does nothing.

I am not even calling for Canada to be the first to take action. Germany has banned Samidoun, and Khaled Barakat is banned from the entire European Union of 27 countries. Nearly a whole fricking continent will not allow this terrorist supporter onto its soil, yet he is free to spew hatred here in Canada. What am I missing? Is Khaled Barakat a Liberal super donor? Is he a member of the Laurier Club? Is he about to be appointed a board member of SDTC, the Liberal government's green slush fund?

Instead of slushing around, the government should be flushing this hateful organization. My question to the parliamentary secretary is simple: Will it ban Samidoun, yes or no?

Kevin Vuong

$554,364.00