Thank you, sir, for your kind words and your very good question.
As I mentioned, a global dialogue on the future of Iran is an important initiative on the part of the Canadian government—and, of course, a dialogue produces results over time. I think it's very important to sustain this to allow for a diversity of views to be represented. I think that the first meeting, despite its challenges, did go quite far in doing that.
I think that one of the main shortcomings of Canada—although Canada has played a great leadership role across both the Liberal and Conservative governments in sponsoring resolutions at the U.N. General Assembly on the human rights situation—is where it stands apart from both the United States and European Union in its failure to adopt targeted sanctions against the Iranian officials responsible for human rights abuses. This is something that we've called for over several years. It's important to signal to the regime that it's not merely the nuclear issue that is a concern to the international community and which is exacting a cost on the regime, but that human rights abuses will also exact a cost.
The European Union now has a list of almost 100 Iranian officials—and it's not that those individuals will necessarily be travelling to Europe, or that they necessarily have assets that can be frozen. But it's an important way of not just naming and shaming, but also in a sense blacklisting individuals who have to ask themselves what will happen if they're no longer in power, if their names are being listed not just by non-governmental organizations and activists, but also by governments, by the international community. Could they one day face justice? I would hope that Canada begins to adopt targeted sanctions. There's plenty of documentary evidence from organizations such as the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, which has been relied upon by the EU and the United States in determining who should be listed.
Just very quickly, further to the question that you asked Ms. Susanne Tamás, I it is fair to say that the number of Bahá'ís in Iran—although one cannot define it—is significantly larger than 300,000. One of the reasons the regime is so desperately trying to repress the Bahá'í community is the widespread disillusionment of people with the brand of Shia Islam that has been imposed on them. So the Bahá'í beliefs, which are basically very progressive, but still akin to people's spiritual needs, are very popular among significant elements of the Iranian population. Just as many people are becoming Christians, and so on and so forth, the regime is very threatened—even by Sufism, which is part or particular interpretation of Islam. All of this is once again a measure of their desperation, of their fear that they're losing power.