Thank you, Chair, and thank you very much for the opportunity.
I want to thank the witnesses. I often talk about full disclosure, so I want to disclose something else as well.
I've had the great honour, for almost the past dozen years, to serve on the Subcommittee on International Human Rights. One of the most compelling and most tragic memories I have is this. We had Shahbaz Bhatti give testimony before our committee, and I had lunch with him shortly after that. He said to me, in these exact words, “David, I will probably pay for this with my blood.” Unfortunately, three weeks later he was gunned down in his driveway in front of his mother's house.
He was your brother, Peter. His photograph is beside my desk to continually remind me that what we do here is extremely important, and people's lives depend on it.
So the seriousness of my questions cannot be doubted by the witnesses.
First, Father de Souza, I agree with you totally that the government has very little competence in regard to religious debate and in regard to legislating in that arena. We did have a forum here until this session. I hope it's picked up by somebody else. I chaired it for five years. We had the all-party interfaith friendship group, and we had Zoroastrians, Sikhs, Baha'is, Muslims, Christians, Jews—just everyone who would participate in trying to create a forum. As I said, I agree with you on the competence, but we were trying to create a forum where we could have that kind of dialogue.
I want to say to you, Mr. Cameron, that it appeared to me that you had a lot more to say, and that you didn't have the capability.
Chair, I would like to be able to get an agreement from the committee that the rest of Mr. Cameron's testimony, even though it's in writing, could be submitted for evidence. Would that be okay?