Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 10th, 2014

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Yes, within Syria.

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

Again, I think we have to be very cognizant of the fact that there are a variety of groups that are facing persecution. I think we should really seek to assist as many of those groups as we can, bearing in mind the complexity of the situation.

If we're talking about program dollars and the project side of things, our religious freedom fund is a longer term type of engagement where we'd like to be involved in projects for, in many cases, a multi-year project. We're open right now to any types of partners, whether multilateral partners or specific faith communities, that have the capacity to partner in Syria for proposals that they would like to submit to us. We haven't, to my knowledge, received any specific proposals to engage in Syria right now because I think, again, the situation is so volatile and fluid. But we're certainly open to that.

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Yes.

I do know that when this whole catastrophe started, it seemed to be a political event, and it has turned a little away from politics. I read:

Religious civil wars are longer and bloodier than other types of clashes, according to studies. They are also twice as likely to recur and twice as deadly to non-combatants.

It seems to be exactly what's happening in Syria at this particular time.

Is there a way to intervene or aid that would compel action against violations of religious freedom within the Syrian region?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

In terms of the broader region as well?

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Yes.

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

I think one of the things we're really concerned about is spillover. We've already seen some spillover into Lebanon where, again, there's a very diverse religious makeup. I think we would also obviously be concerned about spillovers into broader areas of the region where you do have tremendous religious diversity.

The actions that can be taken fit in with the three areas that our office focuses on. Advocacy—and that can be ourselves using the traditional diplomatic tools of engaging with our like-minded partners to see how we can make statements on Syria, as Canada, multilaterally, trilaterally with countries such as the U.K. and the U.S. that are also seeking to advance religious freedom. How can we engage from the programming side? Can we work multilaterally? I think that would be a natural way to approach the situation in Syria, given the number of multilateral activities that are going on. Again, we would probably seek to match our capacities with what we might be able to do in that region.

But the fear of spillover is quite great, so even though right now it's a bit of a challenge to engage directly, we're certainly monitoring the situation in countries such as Lebanon. I was recently in Israel and had a chance to engage with a number of Christian leaders there on the question of Syria, and also met with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in Turkey in October, and the volatile situation there was one of the issues he was preoccupied with as well. I think there are partners out there we can engage with. We've repeatedly put out requests to get proposals that we could work on.

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move over now to Mr. Garneau for seven minutes.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Ambassador. It's nice to meet you and listen to your presentation.

I'm going to start with a very basic question. Don't take it the wrong way. Why is your position required? What dimension do you bring that did not exist before with all the rest of our ambassadors? Canada is known as a country that believes in religious freedom. It's in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. What additional dimension do you bring by being the ambassador for religious freedom?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

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.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Thank you.

How would you measure the success of the efforts you've made since you've been installed?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

With this type of work, it's sometimes hard to measure specific successes, especially at this point in our mandate. We can look at specific cases where we can see that we've made an intervention and something beneficial happens, such as the case of Mr. Sally that I mentioned, but I'm certainly not naive enough to think that by engaging countries such as China or Pakistan or Egypt, where there are very serious violations of religious freedom going on, suddenly that is going to change during my tenure as ambassador or even in the future beyond that.

We can hopefully measure by engaging in diligent review of our programs and seeing whether they are actually having an impact on the ground. Are they bringing people into greater dialogue? Especially in post-conflict situations like the one in Nigeria that we're working on, are we seeing a diminution of conflict? Are we seeing, again, greater dialogue? What I'm talking about is dialogue with outcomes, not simply talking shots. There are lots of dialogues around inter-religious activities, but we'd obviously like to measure, as we move along in our mandate, what concrete impacts are happening.

It's a massive challenge, and, again, I'm not so naive as to think that we can make a difference overnight, but, case by case, if we can have an impact on the ground in various situations, then that would certainly give me some comfort that we're doing the right thing.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Thank you.

The United Nations has a special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief. Do you have any interaction with that person?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

Yes, I actually had direct interaction with Dr. Bielefeldt this past autumn. I was down in New York and our permanent mission to the United Nations organized a wonderful dialogue with Dr. Bielefeldt, special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, and also the UN special rapporteur on the rights of minorities. We had about 120 people in the room and we had a very good discussion on the nature of religious freedom.

Dr. Bielefeldt, with the UN framework, is my principal interlocutor. We've had a chance to engage, and I'm sure we'll be doing so again in the coming year.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

I have a more difficult question. Canada has certain aims with respect to engaging China in a number of areas and at the same time you, as the ambassador for religious freedom, I imagine, have some interaction with certain groups there. I'm thinking of Tibetans in particular. How do you work that, given the fact that you have a mandate and the government also has some objectives?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

Obviously, I think our foreign policy regarding China is multi-faceted whether we're speaking of commercial relations, trade relations, political, bilateral relations, but whenever, certainly, the Prime Minister or the minister engages on China, they raise human rights issues and certainly they have raised religious freedom in the past.

With the work I've been doing, I've had a chance now domestically to meet with most of the principal groups facing persecution in China. I've had a chance to meet with the Tibetan Buddhist community on two or three occasions, with the Uyghur Muslim community on a number of occasions, with Falun Gong practitioners on several occasions, and I had a chance last May out in Vancouver to engage with some Chinese Christian groups.

We will continue to speak out as we need to against the really serious persecution facing these groups in China. I like to refer to China as the equal opportunity persecutor. They target everybody, and I don't think we can shrink back from speaking out against that.

At the same time, it can't be all finger pointing and finger wagging. It has to be a genuine dialogue. I remain confident that we can hopefully have a dialogue with the Chinese government and speak to them about where there can be maybe some expansion in their understanding of freedom of religion. The situation in China is fundamentally about government restrictions. We see very little by way of social hostilities.

When it comes to issues around other claims that the Uyghur Muslim community and the Tibetan Buddhist community might have in terms of the makeup of China, Canada clearly has a one-China policy and so in my interactions I maintain that. Although it can be very difficult at times to separate out the religious freedom issue from some of the claims that are made by these groups regarding geographic claims, so far, we have been able to navigate that and focus distinctly on what the religious freedom issues are.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Garneau.

We're going to start our second round, which will be five minutes for each questioner.

Mr. Anderson.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming to committee today.

I'd like to go back to the same topic as Mr. Schellenberger, and that's Syria. We're talking about doing a report when we're done the hearings here, but we need to have testimony to write that report. I'm wondering if you could go over the landscape a bit of the religious groups that are functioning in Syria, the strength they have, who the strong groups are, the ones who are a little weaker, and then some of the ones that have less authority and power. What are the situations they find themselves in?

I know I've only got five minutes so we'll come back to it later, but I'm interested. What dynamics are taking place there?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

Mr. Chair, perhaps I can give a brief answer to the member and then we can provide some additional material in advance of the study that the committee wishes to do.

The main groups we're particularly concerned about are the ones that are in significant minority positions. Those would include the Druze within Syria. In terms of particular Muslim groups, we would also say the Ismaili Muslim community. In terms of Christians there would be the Syriac Orthodox community, the Greek Orthodox or Antiochian Orthodox community. Then I think there are obviously groups within both the Shia and Sunni community that, because of their political views, get caught between the government and the rebels. There are those Shia and Sunnis who do not support the rebel groups so they often find themselves in great difficulty.

Roman Catholics are also active there. I spoke about the Franciscan friar Father François Murad who was killed. There is quite a complex and rich religious landscape in the country. The groups that seem to be particularly targeted appear to be the Christian community of various stripes, the Druze, and I know there is a good deal of concern with the Ismaili community. I know the Armenian Apostolic Christians have been present in Syria for a very long time, both in Aleppo and in Damascus. On a couple of occasions I've met with various Armenian clergy here in Canada, and also when I was in Turkey, and they've raised concerns about the Armenian community there as well. That would be another group you'd want to engage.

I can certainly speak to my colleagues on the Syria desk and provide the committee with some more information.

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

Okay. I think we'd welcome that.

Given that diversity, how do we effectively address that issue, when you find yourself, as Mr. Schellenberger mentioned, in a civil war situation? Is it a case of just trying to speak to the principles we have in hope that someone is listening? How do you think we can effectively address some of these issues, when communities are being obliterated or chased out of the country?

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

Again, in terms of why we're advocating religious freedom, a lot of it is from that Canadian experience of pluralism, of living in a multi-faith, multicultural country. Syria, as well, is a pluralist, multi-faith country and has been for millennia. I think the language of pluralism that we speak here could have some resonance in the case of Syria.

To your first point, we can continue to use that language in our diplomatic engagement, and encourage that same language among like-minded countries. When it comes to opportunities for programming, I think we need to be open-minded in finding partners that have a good understanding of the terrain and of what's happening in Syria. A number of different groups, a few that I've come to know, have been active in Syria for quite some time. One group that I've engaged on a number of occasions is the Catholic Near East Welfare Association. They've been present on the ground there for quite a number of decades. I know a number of different Muslim groups are quite concerned about the situation there. The Imam Al-Khoei Foundation is a Shia foundation that has representation in the United Kingdom. I met with them there as well as in the United States. They are originally Iraqi-based but I know they are quite interested in what's happening in Syria. Again, maybe we could offer some suggestions in that regard.

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

There are a number of different refugee situations from camps to people being trapped in their home communities. I'm wondering, and I think someone asked this question the other day, if you find sectarian strife in those camps. Has that been manageable? Is that a place that it hasn't been carried? Have they been able to take some of this historic tolerance to the camps with them? Is that an issue in places where refugees are gathering as well?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's all the time we have but I'm going to let you answer the question.

[Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett]

Yes, Mr. Chair, I would have to defer that question to my colleagues in the department who are more familiar with the refugee camp situation. What I can say is that I know some of the refugee camps that we find in the southern part of Turkey tend to be heavily populated by Christians who have fled the fighting. But again, I would need to probably come back to the committee and consult colleagues in our department. I would think also that Citizenship and Immigration might have some awareness of that situation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Madame Laverdière, five minutes, please.