Foreign Affairs committee  The religious freedom picture in the region is quite varied. Certainly countries such as Jordan and Lebanon, as I've indicated, have a very high degree of religious freedom, a very high degree of tolerance. These countries have welcomed large numbers of members of religious minor

Foreign Affairs committee  I could certainly look into that issue for you. I'm not aware of significant numbers, or even smaller numbers, of Christians fleeing into Iran to escape the situation with ISIL in Iraq. But certainly Iran has one of the worst records in the world in terms of religious persecution

Foreign Affairs committee  Just to clarify, those were the 2013-14 numbers.

Foreign Affairs committee  Right. When the office came into existence in February 2013, as I reported to this committee before, we had to take some time to get the programming operations up and running. We had to develop the business process and a number of things, so we did lapse a good portion of our mon

Foreign Affairs committee  I'd have to get back to you on that. I can't remember off the top of my head.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, we'd certainly be happy to do that. I'd be happy to talk to you.

Foreign Affairs committee  Certainly. These reports were coming out very early on as ISIL advanced through Iraq and into Syria. It was a tax that would be imposed on Christians, Yazidis, and other minorities. There were basically three options for people in minority groups, for Christians, Yazidis, Mandaea

Foreign Affairs committee  Perhaps you could elaborate a little bit.

Foreign Affairs committee  I always knew that Tom Farr was a very wise man, so this confirms that.

Foreign Affairs committee  The importance of training diplomats has been recognized by a number of countries including Canada in terms of the area of religious freedom. This comes back to something that not only our offices but also many of my colleagues have observed when they've been engaged in postings

Foreign Affairs committee  In terms of on-the-ground types of activities, as I mentioned previously, we're trying to work as much as we can with countries in the region that have an openness towards advancing religious freedom. Again I would reference the Jordanians, in particular Prince Ghazi who has been

Foreign Affairs committee  Let me be very frank to begin with. One of our operating understandings in the Office of Religious Freedom is to avoid any naïveté. I think whether it's in the Middle East or in Pakistan or in many other countries where you have the entrenched nature of this type of religious per

Foreign Affairs committee  That's right.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you can appreciate, it's a multi-faceted response, like a lot of our efforts. On the one hand, we're trying to encourage those countries in the region that have an interest, as we do, in the broader security of the region and stopping ISIL in its advance

Foreign Affairs committee  Again, just to reinforce what the minister said, pluralism is at the heart of advancing religious freedom. We advance religious freedom overseas not simply through international covenants that speak to it as a fundamental right, but we advance it based on the Canadian experience