Mr. Speaker, I have some difficulty speaking on behalf of the government as to what our government is doing. Although I know that in our committee government members have worked with us and when we had our witnesses we developed together the report on Iran that had 30 recommendations. Hopefully a good number of them will be followed through by the government.
Going back to minorities, if we look at the Baha'i faith, it was indicated by the member for Ottawa Centre that this happened after the time of Mohammed. So anything that came after was more at risk than those minorities in the country before. However, we also have a split in that part of the world between Sunni and Shi'a and the people in control of the regime are a minority in themselves but they have the power on their side. People know well that the revolution in 1979 was a student-led revolution that was basically hijacked by the Mullahs and distorted into what it became. However, when Ahmadinejad was elected there was a major change. He became the strong arm man. He became the person who travelled the world speaking about what horrors they would point toward Israel if they ever got atomic weapons. So there is a problem here because it is two stage. How much of it is rhetoric, how much is reality and how much can another government from this part of the world do about it?
In his testimony, Dr. Akhavan told us that the revolution had to happen by the people of Iran, that outside nations had to stand back and support it but not directly cause it. That is an important lesson we should learn from this Iranian who is in Canada.