Mr. Speaker, I have a concern about the term “conclusive diversity as a source of strength”. Specifically, I am concerned about the protection of religious freedom being watered down by the government.
When the mandate for bringing the refugees into our country was shared with the various parties, we had an opportunity to ask questions. An individual from the NDP was very thankful that we were bringing refugees from the most vulnerable groups identified by the UN into our country. He was very pleased we were bringing in the homosexual community, which was under great stress of being killed in Syria. It even set up separate camps for those people so they could be brought here and could identify with that homosexual community when it arrived here. That is a concern, and I am very grateful this protection is there. No one should have to die because of those specific perspectives.
My question that night was about the Christian communities in Syria, those vulnerable people who were not being brought to our country, and the fact that there were people here who wanted to help them. The response was that they were helping the most vulnerable groups. Three of them were identified that evening, but not the religious vulnerable group as one of the groups we were supporting bringing to Canada.
As we know, that is not a priority for the government. I would like to know why we are not bringing more of those groups from Syria to Canada.