Canada’s Office of Religious Freedom will provide $500,000 in funding to Mennonite Central Committee to support peace education and promote religious dialogue in Iraq and Syria, as well as in Lebanon. Working with youth, religious leaders and civil society organizations, this project aims to improve social cohesion and raise awareness on religious freedom and pluralism, which are crucial to achieving long-term peace and stability in Iraq and the region.
On April 29, 2015, Prime Minister Stephen Harper committed $2.5 million to support the Middle East’s financial systems in creating better safeguards to limit the use by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) of international financial structures.
As part of this announcement, and in support of the Counter Financing Action Plan, Canada has provided an update on its plans to deliver targeted assistance toward the prevention, detection, prosecution and conviction of those seeking to fund or launder funds for ISIS-related activity. To that end, Canada will cooperate with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to deliver a $2-million technical training program for financial intelligence unit analysts, prosecutors, judges, financial investigators and other regulators and policy-makers in countries of the Middle East and North Africa.
In September 2014, then Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird announced $5 million to support regional efforts in the Middle East and North Africa to stem the flow of foreign fighters into Syria and Iraq.
As part of this announcement, and in support of the implementation of the Foreign Fighters Action Plan, Canada provided an update on its counter-terrorism capacity-building programming to address the threat of foreign fighters. Canada committed $1 million to Interpol for training of front-line police officers in the Middle East and North Africa. The training will build technical skills related to border security, intelligence gathering and behaviour analysis. Support will also be provided to increase the application of Interpol information-sharing technologies and databases to stem the flow of foreign fighters into ISIS-held territory.
