Mr. Chair, I appreciate the opportunity to get up tonight. I want to read the words the Prime Minister John Diefenbaker said on the day he introduced the Canadian Bill of Rights in Parliament. He said:
I am Canadian...free to speak without fear, free to worship God in my own way, free to stand for what I think is right, free to oppose what I believe is wrong, free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.
I think each of us here takes that to heart and believes that to be critically important.
In our country we are fortunate that we have many different religions and many different things that people believe. We all share some common principles, basically of tolerance, of acceptance, of peace and security. Even though we do not all see things the same way, we are willing to accept other people's differences.
I had a conversation with a staff member today and she said, “All these things you are doing, is it just words or are we actually making a difference?”
Could the member maybe talk a bit more about how we can work to convince the government of Iran that these principles we hold so dear are something that would be good for its people as well? What can we do besides just talk about these issues?