You would have to ask Minister Baird and people within the government about the policy rationale behind that. But I certainly can speak to the fact that our office, as I indicated in my remarks, is responding to a trend that we're seeing in the world today of escalating persecution of people of faith. That's not to say that this wasn't already taking place, and that our foreign service officers abroad were not engaged in religious freedom on a regular basis in posts, because they certainly were. This has been an issue for many decades, so they've been quite active in addressing religious freedom.
I think what our office offers them is an effective resource to assist in addressing this escalating trend of violence and increasing restrictions on people of faith. I think that's part of the rationale as to why we exist. Certainly, if we look at other countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, where there are roughly equivalent positions to mine, we're also seeing other multilateral groups such as the European Union, which just recently published a set of guidelines on freedom of religion through the external action service.
A number of other countries are actively engaged in advancing religious freedom, not only those countries in western Europe and the developed world, but also in the developing world. Senegal has been quite vocal on advancing religious freedom as well. Brazil is beginning to engage in this area.
I think the office is timely in that it's meeting what we're seeing in terms of this trend, but I think it also fits in squarely with Canada's broader human rights policy framework. It just so happens that this is an area of distinct importance, given the trends we're seeing.