Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 10th, 2014

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

Well, Mr. Chair, I think I have to factor in all of those different human rights, because they all come into play.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thanks.

Mr. Goldring, then Mr. Dewar, and then Mr. Anderson.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Ambassador, the reporting, the speaking out on issues on individual countries and individual circumstances...and it's mentioned here, the tie-in with the OSCE. Of course that's an organization of some 56 countries, Canada and the United States among them.

Do you publish reports on individual circumstances in the countries, reports that would be given to members of Parliament? A number of members of Parliament here have been at the OSCE annual general meetings on a regular basis. It seems to me to be a pretty good forum for putting individual concerns forward. I would think one of the difficulties you might have is how you pressure a government into doing something. You may not want to be the person doing the pressuring on it; maybe it could be turned over to some of these committee members to put forward.

That's just with the OSCE, but is that a forum or a methodology that would be effective to get the issue out to the proper groups and organizations?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

I think the question, Mr. Chair, is a really important one, because it points to the role of parliamentarians in this process.

One of the first things I did in the few months after my appointment was to specifically ask the minister if I could reach out to the different parliamentary caucuses, which I did, because this is so consistent with what we do in Canada in terms of advancing human rights. In those meetings that I had, I really put out the invitation for parliamentarians to be engaged on this issue and, as appropriate, to engage our office on these particular issues. Where there are issues of concern to various parliamentarians, we would certainly be welcome to having a dialogue to see where there are different actions that can be taken to advance this priority.

We see this as really an all-of-government priority. This is an opportunity, on this particular human right, for Canada to make a difference. I would welcome, from members of this committee, their input and their insight where there are concerns, or where there are particular countries of concern, into whether or not it's working through the various multilateral bodies that they're engaged with, whether it's the OSCE, the UN, the Commonwealth, or whatever it might be. We're looking for any possible avenue to raise this issue, and to do it in a way that demonstrates a nuanced understanding of this. That's one of my goals, I think, over the length of my appointment, to ensure that....

You know, there are a lot of countries that talk about religious freedom, that are engaged on religious freedom. I would like Canada to have the best and most nuanced approach so that we have an understanding of all the different complex issues that we've been discussing today in the context of religious freedom. I think having parliamentarians involved in that dialogue is absolutely essential, since parliamentarians play a role in our own democracy of upholding these fundamental freedoms.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

So your office would be preparing all of the backgrounder information for it, and would maybe even help to prepare the resolution that would be appropriate to put forward to the assembly, whether it's the OSCE, the OAS, or any one of the other organizations that many of us are on and attend?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

Mr. Chair, we engage regularly with our colleagues in the multilateral division who are involved in those fora. I was at the ODIHR meetings, the OSCE human rights meetings in Warsaw in September, and have been working very closely with our missions based in Vienna and in Warsaw to talk about how Canada wants to reflect our perspective on the resolution on religious freedom.

Canada is a regular co-sponsor of resolution 16/18 on religious freedom of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. We seek good input into ensuring that we can have a robust statement in that resolution around why it is important to defend this freedom.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Do you compare notes with the United States so that you're able to understand each other and get the same information?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

Certainly.

Obviously Canada is going to have our own unique perspective on it, but I think when we can find those opportunities for multilateral engagement, so much the better.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Are there any other countries that are looking at setting up their own religious freedom organization?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

Mr. Chair, some of the countries I've been engaged with in regard to their religious freedom activities include the U.S., the U.K, and France. I know Germany is getting quite engaged in developing some sort of new structure around religious freedom. The Dutch are as well. The Dutch ambassador was one of the first people I met with when I came into the position, so the Dutch are quite engaged. They have religious freedom-focused projects, I believe, in roughly nine or ten countries right now. The Holy See as well is focusing on religious freedom, particularly, as one would expect, on the persecution of Christians. Brazil, I think as well, is another country in the global south that is increasingly engaged in this area. We're finding that there is greater interest as more countries discuss this particular issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you. That's all the time we have.

Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I have two quick questions.

I noted the minister was talking about having more engagement from the foreign service core in general, with you being part of it, so are you on Twitter?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

I am on Twitter. Our Twitter feed went up, I think, a month and a half or two months ago. We also have a new Facebook site that's up and running. I'm trying to tweet as often as I can.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

It can be a bit of a distraction.

The other quick question was on your mandate. Some might say that religious freedom starts at home. How do you deal with domestic issues? Are those something you have had to grapple with? If so, what's the outcome of that?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

Obviously the focus for me, Mr. Chair, is on foreign policy and on advancing that foreign policy, but there is necessarily some domestic outreach, through which I'm reaching out, as I've indicated, to a variety of different communities in Canada.

Occasionally when domestic situations arise, they are raised by foreign governments we are engaging with and there are various people within the Government of Canada, various ministers, who have spoken out on certain domestic issues, so it's not my specific role to speak out on domestic issues.

But I would say we are able to advance religious freedom and talk about religious freedom and seek to defend it overseas because we have it in Canada. We have institutions that protect it. We have parliamentarians and other legislators who defend it. Canadian citizens uphold it through their activities. And fundamentally, it's in the Constitution. It behooves us as a foreign service and as Canadians to speak about it internationally.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We'll wrap up with you, Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I'd just like you to go into a little bit more detail if you would about what partnership with foreign governments looks like and what partnership with NGOs looks like, say, over the next year. We're talking about things like reports the Americans do. You say you utilize those, and you talked about project alignment to some extent; I think you were mentioning that. I'm wondering about conferences and those kinds of things. What does it mean when we say we're going to be working with other governments—international governments—and what does it mean when you say you're working with international organizations as well? I'd just like to get a sense of where we are going and how we can help that.

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

As I've indicated, obviously Canada will act on its own, as we have. We can interact with like-minded countries in a variety of different ways. We're in the process now of coming to the realization that a lot of us are interested in advancing this fundamental freedom. We're just beginning to have some deeper discussions about coming together in some sort of forum within the coming year whereby we can actually talk not so much about the analysis—we know what the analysis says, we know the trend, we know what the challenges are—but about some concrete outcomes and some concrete actions that we can take collectively, where appropriate, to address certain issues.

I think in many cases Canada has a freer hand to act in certain countries because of who we are within the international community, but there are areas where we can partner with other countries. We are consistently looking for opportunities to do that, but coming together with those countries, to have a concrete discussion about where we can go, what we can do, is something that will be taking place in the coming months, as will continually deepening our relationship with multilateral fora.

Part of my goal over the next year is to increase our interactions with colleagues within the European Commission, with the UN, and to keep a close connection with the OSCE. There are no specific joint projects at this point, apart from the OSCE project that I already referenced, but I think there's a recognition that we have a common focus and there are times when we can speak with a common voice, multilaterally or trilaterally or whatever the case may be. We need to take advantage of those and seize those opportunities.

I know there will opportunities for me in the coming months in some of my travels. When I'm going off to countries of particular interest, I'm able to stop off, whether in Paris, Brussels, London, Washington, or New York, on the way to those countries of focus, to have those types of conservations. We're also sharing information with our allies on a regular basis about what we're seeing on the ground in terms of religious freedom.

That's the tenor of things right now.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Is there a structure in place right now to do that sharing of information? Or perhaps that's what you're talking about trying to establish.

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

That's right. There is no formalized structure right now. It's really just our office interacting with our counterparts on a regular basis.

I'll be going down to Washington next week. There has been a lot of changing personnel on the American side of the religious freedom question, so I'll be engaging with some of them. Really, it's just sharing information, hearing what they're hearing about different countries, the analysis that they're undertaking.

So informal and moderately formal consultations take place. Right now we're realizing that we need to have some other maybe slightly more formalized structure, whether it's through the UN and/or through some sort of dialogue where we meet as like-mindeds.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Okay. So you have a big challenge with limited resources.

How do NGOs and those kinds of things then fit into that picture as well? How do you use the kind of energy and resources that they bring? Or is that still in formation as well?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

No, I think we've certainly found from both the policy side and the project side that there are NGOs we can effectively partner with that have expertise in these countries and a depth of knowledge of the situation in certain countries. They have been trusted partners for quite some time with the government, including with our development colleagues in many cases, and we want to engage them and have them involved in the project work we are doing.

At the same, the analysis that different NGOs provide is seminal to the work we're doing. We have adequate resources but a small team, so in addition to the reports that our missions provide, this analysis is very helpful.

Early on after my appointment I had a chance to reach out to Alex Neve of Amnesty International to hear what they are doing—they have such a wide network—and I've had a number of interactions since then with people at Amnesty about specific cases they're concerned about. We're also monitoring a couple of cases involving the Centre for Inquiry, a secular humanist and atheist group that has offices in both Toronto and the U.S. They've apprised me of certain situations that they are concerned about.

From the NGO world, we can also find out about particular areas of concern and we can liaise with our missions to get more information about specific cases—really invaluable in our work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you for your time today, Ambassador. We really appreciate your candour.

The meeting is adjourned.