Mr. Speaker, some religious groups supported creating the Office of Religious Freedom as well as keeping it open. Many people pointed out, just as we did, that there was a fundamental problem with having one set of rights take precedence over another.
As members are aware, I worked for foreign affairs for 15 years. I worked mainly on thematic issues, and I worked very closely with the people in the department who deal with human rights.
The people working on this file know the issues and take a holistic approach by addressing all rights. I always wondered whether, instead of giving so much money to the Office of Religious Freedom, the government should have given more support and additional resources to the existing resources within the department, which were already doing extraordinary work.