Pervez Nasim
President, Ansar Cooperative Housing

Pervez Nasim
Pervez Nasim is a Bachelor of Commerce and a Certified Management Accountant. He is a founding member and Chair of the Board of the Islamic Co-operative Housing Corporation Ltd. and he has been volunteering his time since its inception in 1980 in Toronto, and Ansar Co-operative Housing Corporation, first Interest-Free Home Ownership and Investment projects in North America. He is also the Chair of the Canadian Islamic Trust Foundation (CITF) that is the Trust wing of ISNA Canada.

Pervez Nasim was employed by the Ministry of Finance in Canada from where he retired in 2004 after twenty-seven years of service so that he can devote more time to the various Islamic Financing & Investment Projects. During the past twelve years he has made a number of presentations on ISLAMIC FINANCE in various INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC BANKING AND FINANCE conferences held in Chicago, Houston, Los Angles, Toronto, Khartoum, Kuala Lumpur, Riyadh, Brunei Darussalam and at Harvard University, London School of Economics in England and at Crans Montana Forum in Geneva, Switzerland.

Derek Lee
One of Canada’s most experienced Parliamentarians, Derek Lee was first elected in 1988, and re-elected in every subsequent federal election.  Throughout his tenure, he has demonstrated a commitment to rise above partisanship and work collaboratively with his fellow Members of Parliament in order to accomplish measurable results.  In the 2006 Federal Election, Mr. Lee obtained both the largest majority and highest percentage of the vote among all Liberals elected to the House of Commons.  

In Ottawa, Mr. Lee is currently the Chairperson of the G.T.A. Federal Liberal Caucus and the Vice-Chair of the Committee for Justice and Human Rights, which he previously chaired and has been a member of for more than 15 years.  In his current role with the Justice Committee, Mr. Lee is presently working on several proposed legislative changes to criminal law and the national DNA data bank. 

Mr. Lee is also currently a member of the Subcommittee on Private Members’ Business of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, as well as the Standing Joint Committee for Scrutiny of Regulations, which he has served on continuously for 15 years and chaired (1989-93).