Madam Speaker, I am very happy and honoured to rise today on behalf of my constituents of Portage—Lisgar to speak in favour of the opposition motion. The motion does a couple of things, but two things would be accomplished primarily if the motion were passed.
First, it would recognize the good work being done by Canada's Office of Religious Freedom. I think that is something we could probably all agree on in the House. There seems to be a consensus that Dr. Bennett and the folks he has worked with at the Office of Religious Freedom have done good work.
It is the second part of the motion that seems to be contentious. That is where we are calling on the government to renew the current mandate of the office. The reason is that its continued vital work is needed now more than ever.
I want to speak to both of those topics and a bit about my experience since being a member of Parliament and prior to that, in terms of what I learned about how blessed we are to live in Canada. We have religious freedom and many times we take those religious freedoms for granted. As a member of Parliament, I learned from colleagues in other countries about the lack of religious freedom. It is not just emotional or social persecution but physical persecution to the point of death that individuals in other countries have had to suffer.
It is important to note that the issue of religious freedom around the world is a growing concern. Religious freedom around the world is not expanding. If anything, it is contracting. That means that people who are living in Muslim countries are not freer to practise their Christian faith. That means that people who are living in Communist countries are not freer to practise their Sikh, or Muslim, or Jewish faith. According to Global Affairs Canada, nearly 77% of the world's population lives in countries with high government restrictions on freedom of religion and/or where social hostilities committed by individuals and groups involving religion are allowed by the government. Seventy-seven per cent of all the world's population is living with restrictions on religious freedoms.
In terms of the Christian population in the world, according to The Voice of the Martyrs, 85% of the world's population is subject to persecution if they are Christian or if they are Sikh converts to Christianity. Not only are they not allowed to practise their religion, if they are of another religion and want to convert to Christianity or to a different religion, they are also restricted from doing that.
This is a growing problem, not just for Christians. It is an issue for all the major religions of the world, including for Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and, as has already been mentioned, those who profess no faith. There are people in our world who have no faith. They are atheists. However, in the particular country they live in, they are not allowed to publicly profess that or they will face death, prosecution, or penalties for having that particular non-belief. It is a problem, and it should be recognized and called out as an issue.
The Office of Religious Freedom was created by our Conservative government. It was actually an election promise. When we were elected in 2011, we can say with confidence we were given the mandate to create the Office of Religious Freedom. None of the other parties opposed that office when we created it. All parties agreed it was needed. It was given a modest budget. However, even with that modest budget, it was able to accomplish a lot of good work.
It was created to, among things, defend religious communities abroad and to advocate, analyze, and develop policy and programs to protect religious communities under threat. It has been doing that work. Even with the small budget of $5 million, it has been able to do work in Bangladesh to educate school-age children. So many times that is where religious intolerance starts. At a very young age, wrong teachings are given to children.
It has increased awareness around the world about the Holocaust. We are seeing anti-Semitism grow, so to see awareness of the Holocaust and capacity-building seminars on the Holocaust, and remembrance of it being taught, is so important.
The office has engaged in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. This includes engagement with youth, religious leaders, relevant authorities, and community members in those countries to increase inter-religious dialogue for the promotion of religious freedoms and tolerance.
I could go on and talk about all the good things that the Office of Religious Freedom has done, but, as I said, I think we are in agreement on that.
It seems that the case the opposition has to try to make to the government is that we need to single out the issue of religious rights when it comes to making a strong defence of such rights.
I would readily admit that as Conservatives, we do tend to call out issues pretty specifically and then try to address them. When we were in government, we did that on our maternal and newborn health initiative. We recognized that around the world, women in other countries had no value. There were women who were given no resources, women who were dying when giving birth to children. Children have no value in some countries around the world. We directed our international aid dollars specifically to help women, who were suffering when they were in childbirth and young children. We were very specific. We called it out. We did not just say that we should protect all humanity and throw money at helping all humanity. We were very specific and said that as Canadians and as a Canadian government, we were going to help women.
We also did it when we strongly called out our support of Israel and spoke of that support. We, as Conservatives, and sometimes we are criticized for it but I know I will not change my mind on it, tend to call out offences as we see them. Creating the Office of Religious Freedom was one of these areas where we did not want to lump the issue together with women's rights or LGBT rights or with other infractions of human rights.
For some reason, religious rights always goes to the bottom of the list when talking about human rights. As Conservatives, we wanted it and we created the Office of Religious Freedom.
I remember my daughter, who is now 21 years old, coming home when she was in grade 3. She was fairly popular. She was a very pleasant little girl. She did well in school and had lots of friends. She was quite enjoying her grade 3 class and all of her friends. However, my daughter came home in tears a number of days. She said there was a little boy who was being bullied, that kids were mean to him, but she was scared to say anything because she felt if that if she did, they would then be mean to her and they would not like her and she would not be as popular.
That is a pretty common concern of children. When they see someone else being bullied, they, as children, do not want be targeted as well. They want to continue to be asked to all the great parties, to be part of the cool group, to be in all the pictures.
Sometimes, when someone stands up to a bully, they are not popular. Sometimes they have to make a stand, and in making that stand they lose a little bit of popularity. Dare I say, maybe this is what has happened. Some say that Canada is back under the Liberals. I would say that Canada will maybe be more popular now when it comes to being invited to the parties, maybe being invited to a seat at the UN, because maybe now Canada maybe will not be offending some of the biggest religious rights violators that are sitting at the table at the UN. However, I would dare say that Canada should be standing up for the rights of those who are bullied, the rights of individuals like Shahbaz Bhatti who gave his very life. He was assassinated for standing up to the bully.
I would ask that the government reconsider its decision with pride, stand up for women, stand up for minorities, and stand up for religious freedoms by continuing the good work of the Office of Religious Freedom.