Madam Chair, I thank my colleague for raising the whole concern about freedom of religion. I know that the member for Mississauga—Erindale, who will also be speaking, has been involved with that, as has our Minister of Foreign Affairs.
We have some Canadian investment, mainly in the oil sector in Syria, so we do have a connection there. I wonder if the parliamentary secretary, with his vast experience in dealing with foreign governments and countries, could tell us what exactly Canada can do. One thing about Assad, as vicious as he may have been, there was still a certain degree of religious freedom. It was not perfect but there are other places in the area that were much worse. I personally have a real concern that we can go from bad to worse when we deal with some of those values, such as religious freedom.
Whereas our government has said that this is a big issue for Canada around the world, is it working through the UN? Are there certain things we can do in the formation of a new governance model? What can we do here to assure that the next regime does recognize many of the important human rights and values we have but specifically freedom of religion?