Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to something the member raised in his comments and several other members have raised, and that is with respect to the preliminary budget for the office of religious freedoms. The $5 million has been quoted, and I need to tell them two things. One is that it is our hope and expectation that 90% of that $5 million annual budget will be used for programs to protect religious minorities around the world, including Coptic Christians in Egypt.
Second, I would think he would know because he is a wise man, that the U.S. office of religious freedoms has an annual budget of $10 million and the size of the U.S. economy is roughly 10 times the size of the Canadian economy. Typically any Canadian organization would be about one-tenth of the size. We have already gone five times beyond that, but that is the starting budget. We are working with religious communities across Canada to decide what kinds of programs will actually be effective in protecting religious freedoms around the world.
The member was a minister in a government that ruled this country from 1993 to 2006. The U.S. office of religious freedoms was created in 1998. I would like him to explain to the House why Liberals did not create this office of religious freedoms to protect the Copts—