Baha'i is another example.
In Syria, there is a conflict between the Sunni and Shia but also a conflict between the Alawites and the rest, and a conflict between the Christians and the Druze. Is that an expression of religious conflict, ethnic conflict or economic conflict?
If we move on to Israel, there is a conflict between Judaism and Islam. The Coptic Christians are not doing very well in Egypt, in spite of the so-called Arab Spring. While the Muslim Brotherhood might like to eliminate Christianity from that part of the world, it is still a conflict of ethnicity and an economic conflict.
While I congratulate the government on its efforts to bring these kinds of conflicts to the fore and actually speak to the religious component of these conflicts, I do not know how it is going to speak in a way that is coherent and respectful of a variety of other aspects of these conflicts, whether it is ethnic, racial or religious. If we just focus on the religious conflict, I do not know whether it will move the ball forward or have no impact whatsoever.
Mr. Speaker, as you know, I am substituting for my colleague, the member for Mount Royal, who is far more articulate than am I. Had he been able to be here, he would have read into the record his own views. His point is that this motion does not, frankly, go far enough. He states:
M-382 makes no mention of any of the other fundamental human rights contained in Articles 18 of the Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the two documents to which this motion makes express reference. Freedom of speech, the freedom to peacefully assemble, the freedom to marry—or choose not to marry— the freedom to participate in civil society and to take part in the government of one's country, the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to be free from discrimination on the grounds of race, gender, or sexual orientation. Indeed, this motion appears to be unnecessarily limited when considered in relation to the very international documents to which it refers. Mr. Speaker, I want to emphasize that I support this motion without hesitation because the principle of religious freedom should without a doubt be a foundational element of Canadian foreign policy. It is a fundamental human right and it must be promoted...as such.
Then he introduces the big but, and goes on to state:
But, Mr. Speaker, our foreign policy must take a broader view—we must not elevate one human right above all others.
In that respect, I agree with him that we must not emphasize one right above all others. We are in kind of a strange situation in our own, so to speak, post-Christian society. We are a pluralistic society. We are post-Christian, and 20% to 25% of our population says that it does not identify with anything, so the promotion, understanding and application of pluralism is foundational to the success of our society.
The hon. members presenting this motion are right in the sense that in the process of recognizing that we are a post-Christian pluralist society, we should continue to recognize the importance of faith as a core component of many people's lives, not only in our society but in the broader foreign policy context.
A lot of the conflicts I enunciated over the past couple of minutes are core to the belief system, the value system and the cultural expression of those people. To live in kind of a western blindness to the importance of faith to many of the people living in those countries, many of whom come from those countries to our own, is quite naive.
As I say, this is an aspirational statement. It is an important statement to support. I congratulate the hon. member for bringing it forward, and I hope that other members will see that the expression of religious freedom is, in fact, something we need to practise.