Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 10th, 2014

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Ambassador Bennett.

I believe I heard you speak in your opening remarks about how important it is to focus your work on the most important countries. I would like to know what else you take into account when you are choosing those countries you want to focus on.

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

Mr. Chair, I think we use a number of different tools. We certainly engage our missions on a regular basis, both our missions and the geographic desks in the Department of Foreign Affairs, to find out what they're hearing about religious persecution in particular countries. So that's our first port of call, so to speak, we get information fed in from posts.

We're drawing heavily also from independent analysis done by different NGOs. Some of the groups that we engage fairly regularly, again, are the Pew Forum, the Hudson Institute, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and a number of different NGOs that we consult. We also have drawn on the very good work done by the Pew research forum. They actually developed two indicators based on their qualitative analysis. One indicator measures the level of social hostilities, and the other one measures the level of government restrictions.

So in looking at the countries that we've decided to focus upon, we've looked at those indicators, and whether those countries are in the high or the very high category. That's what we use as an external review in a sense.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you.

As you are probably aware, the current situation in the Central African Republic is very tense but the religious authorities, both Muslim and Christian, have begun a rather serious dialogue. There are those who especially fear a genocide in the Central African Republic.

What is your office doing with respect to that issue?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

Mr. Chair, we're getting regular briefings from the post that is responsible for the situation in the Central African Republic and also from the geographic desk. So members of my team are being regularly briefed on the situation.

Obviously, it's a crisis situation. So while there might be opportunities for programming there, the office of religious freedom's programming budget is designed to fund projects that promote inter-religious dialogue and other initiatives. Typically they are more long term in nature and thus at this stage would not appropriately address the urgent humanitarian needs that we have and the peacekeeping needs on the ground required to avoid what the member is describing.

So we're now exploring ways where we could advance religious freedom funding over the medium to long term.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

And in fact I'm not talking about the humanitarian crisis. I'm talking exactly about the dialogue process that has been undertaken by religious authorities, both Muslim and Christian. It seems to me it falls right into your kind of responsibility. So are you doing anything now to support this dialogue process in the Central African Republic?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

Again, the dialogue process would be supported I think beyond policy actions through actually helping to facilitate the dialogue through some sort of project. The group we're working with in Nigeria has, I understand, some experience in that region of Africa, in the Central African Republic. I don't know if it's specifically there, but certainly in that part of Africa. So we're looking to them and to other groups who do have experience where we might be able in the medium to longer term to facilitate greater dialogue.

I think the current humanitarian crisis demands rapid action and we are not able to facilitate that sort of rapid action, given how we're set up at this present time. But we're being consulted regularly by colleagues in the department as to what can be done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're now going to move over to Ms. Brown for five minutes.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Dr. Bennett, it's very nice to see you again, and welcome to our committee.

You began your remarks by talking about the demand for interventions such as what your office is providing, interventions that are going to help stimulate dialogue. One of the countries about which I'm very concerned is Pakistan. Many of us had visits from Shahbaz Bhatti, a man who was elected and who spoke on behalf of many of the religious minorities in Pakistan. It was very sad that we lost that voice in Pakistan.

I wonder if there is any work in your office on Pakistan. You've noted three countries in which we have projects. Is there anything in Pakistan? Given the size of the diaspora in Canada, is there any opportunity for us to work within the diaspora, to listen to the voices that are here and help with some of the diplomatic solutions that hopefully your office is able to take forward?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

I'd like to thank the member for the question. I'll take it in two parts.

First, maybe engaging the advocacy role and engaging with the diaspora, and then secondly, the programming side. I've had a chance from virtually the beginning of the mandate last February and March to meet regularly with different Pakistani groups, whether we're speaking about the Ahmadiyya Muslim community—and I've met them on numerous occasions, not only here in Ottawa, in Toronto, and out in Delta, B.C., where they have a new mosque, but also in London, U.K., when I was there at the invitation of the head of the community.

I've also had a chance to engage the different Pakistani Christian groups that are well represented in different parts of the country, and also the Shia Muslim community. I've had a chance to engage with a number of their imams over the past number of months.

Again, Pakistan is a very complex situation because of the diversity of religious communities there, all of which face targeting, whether we're speaking about the blasphemy laws, the very restrictive laws against Ahmadiyya Muslims. It's interesting to note that the prosecutions under the blasphemy laws disproportionately target Sunni Muslims because the blasphemy laws are misapplied. Most of the time they're used to address, for example, property or family disputes. They're very problematic and we're looking at ways we can address the challenge of the blasphemy laws through our programming and by engaging the Pakistani authorities.

This is a point that has come up regularly in my interactions with the different Pakistani communities here in Canada that represent different faith communities, the whole question of curriculum and how the national curriculum demonizes or denigrates different communities. How can we address that? Through curriculum development, can we work again with the Pakistani government?

Pakistan is one of our principal countries of focus. We believe it's a country where we can have a multi-level form of engagement with government, faith communities, civil society, NGOs, again, working with like-minded countries; and that's not the case in all the countries we're dealing with. For example, I'm under no illusions that we can have a deep dialogue with Saudi Arabia or Iran, but I think Pakistan, Nigeria, and Indonesia are countries that we can work closely with.

I had a chance in London in July of last year to engage in a public dialogue with Dr. Paul Bhatti who effectively succeeded his brother, Shahbaz Bhatti, as the Minister of National Harmony and Minority Affairs in Pakistan. He, unfortunately, was defeated in the last election. He sought a seat in the Pakistani Parliament. But he's now gone on to establish a new institute based, I believe, in Islamabad, that is hoping to continue the work of facilitating inter-religious dialogue within Pakistan. He and I continue to have close contacts.

I have a very good relationship with the high commissioner here in Ottawa and also with the consul general in Toronto who, very courageously, this Christmas had a Christmas celebration at the consulate general in Toronto, the first of its kind.

Again, we think we can have a fairly deep level of engagement within Pakistani society, and yes, we are looking at projects in that country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

That's all the time we have. Maybe we can come back in another round if we have some extra time.

Ms. Grewal, you have five minutes.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And Ambassador Bennett, thank you very much for the time that you have given to attend today's committee and for answering our questions.

I believe religious freedom is an inalienable right. It's intertwined with other religious rights. I was therefore delighted when our government fulfilled its promise and established the office of religious freedom. It clearly shows that Canada continues to view religious freedom as a fundamental value. The work of the office of religious freedom can be vital to the protection and of course the promotion of religious freedom around the world and can advance fundamental Canadian values including freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law worldwide.

So Ambassador Bennett, could you please explain to us how the office of religious freedom will promote Canadian values and human rights worldwide?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

Mr. Chair, I would respond by saying that, again, there are three components to our work.

There's the advocacy component. That's where I as an ambassador engage foreign governments, whether it's in the country specifically or whether it's engaging their representatives here in Canada. It's interacting with different faith communities, both here in Canada and overseas, around the types of persecution and violence that are meted out against different people of faith. It's also working with our allies, both our bilateral allies, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and also multilaterally through different forums that Canada's involved in.

It's a conjuncture of all of those different types of outreach to advance the message that freedom of religion is a fundamental right. And I should emphasize here that when we understand freedom of religion, we understand it as being fundamentally about human rights. Freedom of religion is a human issue. It's not a theological issue. It helps to know a bit about theology to engage it, but it's fundamentally a human issue and we need to be able to speak to all faith communities. That's at the core of our advocacy.

On the policy side, the other section of our work, there are the tools of diplomacy: statements, meeting with foreign representatives, working with missions abroad to advance religious freedom as part of their outreach.

And then thirdly, the programming side uses our programming funds to advance the office's mandate, as I indicated.

[Nina Grewal, Conservative, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

The U.S. office of religious freedom publishes an annual report on international religious freedom. You might know about it.

Do you see this being something that the Canadian office of religious freedom will take on? And if so, do you see a publication like this being fundamental to the goals you wish to accomplish?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

We're very conscious of the adequate resources, I would say, that we've been given. The reports that both the United States Office of International Religious Freedom and the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom put out are very rich. And obviously they advance a particular American understanding of that priority. But certainly, they're very useful for us as well.

We will not be developing such a rich and extensive analysis of religious freedom in different countries. However we're in the process of developing country strategies that will focus on the key issues in specific countries. And then how we are advancing them through the advocacy, policy, and programming functions of the office.

We will also be developing a series of faith community profiles that look at specific faith communities in specific countries to explain what they believe, what their experiences are, what sort of persecution they face, what their geographic distribution is, how Canada is responding to that, and how we are responding multilaterally to it. Ultimately those will be made available to the public.

We have our Religious Freedom Forum, which is a quarterly seminar we are hosting to raise awareness about religious freedom issues.

There's a training component, where we're training our own foreign diplomats around these particular issues so they can engage in a more nuanced fashion on religious freedom issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

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

We're going to move back over to you, Mr. Dewar, sir, for five minutes.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to come back to and just touch on a couple of countries.

You mentioned Hungary in your comments. One of the concerns we've had, which was raised with government, is some pretty vicious rhetoric. We've seen the rise of the right and the old, nasty anti-Semitism. We have a third party there now that has a deputy leader talking about “tallying up” the Jews. There's that kind of rhetoric. This is shocking for people to be hearing in 2014.

In light of that fact, of Hungary kind of going back into that cesspool of anti-Semitism, what would you be informing our government to do in that case?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

I was in Hungary in late September, Mr. Chair, and had a series of meetings there with government officials on the specific issue that the member is raising. I also had a chance to meet with the members of the Jewish community in Budapest. The Jewish community itself is obviously very concerned about the Jobbik Party, which is the party you referred to that has a very disgusting record of anti-Semitic statements. They're very concerned about its activities, but they also realize that, generally speaking, there's not a lot of direct violence against the Jewish community in Hungary. But you do have this vicious rhetoric coming out of this one political party. In my meetings with the Jewish community, they said to really please be vigilant and continue to press the Hungarian government to ensure they are consistent in their condemnation of the anti-Semitic vitriol and rhetoric coming from that party.

That was the message I conveyed to my interlocutors both in the foreign ministry and in the opportunity I had to meet with some advisers to the Prime Minister. I advanced that. One concern we have is that there are elections in Hungary this year. The Hungarian political system, as I'm sure you're aware, is a difficult mix of forces, so we want to be sure that, again, the messages that are coming out from the governing party are consistent around condemning anti-Semitism.

I think it's also important for members of the committee to know that the Hungarian government is taking steps to properly—and I think in a very significant way—mark the 70th anniversary of the 1944 deportation of Hungarian Jews. That is happening this year through a lot of different events, including the establishment of an institute around Holocaust education. When I was in Budapest, I heard the deputy prime minister give a speech at a conference in the Hungarian Parliament, in which he said we have to realize that it was not the German Nazis who did this—it was Hungarians. So—

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you for that. It's helpful. One concern we have is that Canada placed Hungary on the list of safe countries. I think we need to be vigilant on that if people are having to escape, and if violence does erupt, we should look at that.

If there's time, you can give us—and maybe we'll follow up with others—a briefing on your trip to Ukraine. Again, my colleague Mr. Anderson talked about reports, and we're going to be studying Ukraine. Could you could tell us a bit about your visit there, particularly around the Orthodox leaders that you would have met? If there's time, maybe we'll get to Burma and the minority Rohingya group there.

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

Maybe I can speak briefly to Ukraine and then—

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Why don't you do Ukraine? We'll have some time to go back again to address the other one.

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was in Ukraine just over two weeks ago for a 48-hour period. In the midst of the political violence that was ongoing, the focus of the trip was to speak out against the intimidation that has been directed specifically against the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. This is a church that through much of the second half of the 20th century was one of the largest “illegal” religious organizations in the world.

In a number of cases the government has been intimidating the church. Specifically the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, the ministry that is responsible for church-state relations, sent a letter to Patriarch Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, that told him the church needed to cease and desist from being present on the square in Kiev in a pastoral fashion ministering to people, because they were violating articles 16 and 21 of the law that regulates church-state relations. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was the only church that received such a letter in which the government threatened to delist the church—to make it, in other words, an illegal organization within the country.

On the square, reports came to us that the Berkut, the security services, were asking NGO representatives and different clergy about why they were there and what their purpose was. But when it came to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic clergy, they were actually intimidating them and threatening them.

We're also concerned, and I issued a statement on this prior to Christmas, about the intimidation directed toward Ukrainian Catholic University. This has been a long-running type of intimidation. Security services were threatening faculty and staff who were going to Kiev to participate in peaceful protests with phone calls in the middle of the night and these types of Soviet-style tactics.

We have committed to being very vigilant in ensuring that this type of intimidation and persecution of one particular church neither continues nor spreads to other faith communities in Ukraine.

Just around the time I was there, perhaps a couple of days before, two Jews were attacked in Kiev. That's another issue we're focusing on. A very good initiative is the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, actually led by two Canadians, that has brought together Christian leaders in Ukraine, Jewish leaders, and also some Muslim leaders around advancing that dialogue between Christians and Jews. That's something else we're monitoring.

The situation there is very concerning, especially given the influence of certain external actors.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We'll finish up our official round with Mr. Goldring. Then we'll go back and deal with the Burma question after we're done.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Thank you.

Thank you for appearing here, Ambassador Bennett.

Staying on the Ukraine issue, I've been there with election-monitoring. As a matter of fact, I had a meeting with some of the religious leaders there in the Ukraine in the last election when I was there. It's been said of the Moscow-based Orthodox Church there that because it's Moscow-based, there is influence through the church, particularly during election time. From the discussion with some religious leaders when I was there, it seemed to me, and it was indicated to me, that there have been discussions of moving the two churches into one and having it under a Kiev base.

Is there anything to that? Have any discussions been taking place with the Russian Orthodox and Ukrainian Orthodox on this move? Apparently their liturgy is very similar. I was told that there have been discussions on possibly doing that sometime in the future. Certainly it would alleviate some of the problems during election time and maybe some of the other problems they're having as well.

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

Mr. Chair, I'm not aware of the specific point that the member is raising. I'm not sure what sorts of discussions are taking place.

In Ukraine, there are four eastern Christian jurisdictions, the largest of which is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church—Moscow Patriarchate, so it's under the Moscow Patriarchate. They're dominant in the eastern part of the country. Then you have the Ukrainian Orthodox Church—Kyivan Patriarchate, which would be the second-largest, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, which is under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

Without getting into complex matters of ecclesiology and jurisdictional competition, there's one thing that I can advise committee members of, which is that in this current situation facing Ukraine over the last number of months, the churches have been coordinating and cooperating quite well together, with perhaps the exception of the Moscow Patriarchate. They have been working in a dialogue, which hasn't always been there, to advance, again, the importance of democracy and rule of law within Ukraine, and they have been facilitating dialogue between different groups. I think there's always been a great degree of legitimacy given to the churches in Ukraine, and I think the current situation where they have been playing this role has—from what I can see—even enhanced this.

When I was there, I had a chance to meet with Sviatoslav Shevchuk of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Patriarch Filaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church—Kyivan Patriarchate, and some other Greek Catholic bishops. The influence of Moscow, through the Moscow Patriarchate church, is an issue that does come up in these discussions. The current Moscow Patriarchate Metropolitan in Kiev, Metropolitan Volodymyr, is very ill, and has been for some time, with very advanced Parkinson's. There is some concern amongst some quarters that once he is no longer able to serve his Metropolitan upon his death or otherwise, Moscow will take a decision to appoint a more hardline Metropolitan in Kiev, which could complicate the situation.

There is some concern. In the past, there has been some favouritism shown by the government toward the Moscow Patriarchate. President Yanukovych, early on in his presidency, only attended Moscow Patriarchate liturgies. Patriarch Filaret of the Kyivan Patriarchate indicated to me that they have now had a bit of a rapprochement—that the president has been to Kyivan Patriarchate churches—but there is not that same openness from the government towards the Autocephalous Orthodox Church and certainly not towards the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

The level of support for religion in Ukraine seems to be increasing. There seems to be a lot of church construction. I'm not sure whether that's driven by the politics or by the people. Once again, it's political influence, I believe, through the church.

I was told that the percentage of people who are somewhat religious or attending churches on a regular basis is very high in Ukraine now. There seems to be a bit of a resurgence. Could you comment on that?