The Office of Religious Freedom will operate within the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade with an expected annual budget of $5 million. Its mandate will be to promote and monitor religious freedom around the world.

In addition to religious leaders, academics, lawyers and representatives of persecuted religious minorities attended the conference chaired by Foreign Affairs Parliamentary Secretary Bob Dechert. Among attendees was Peter Bhatti, older brother of Shahbaz Bhatti, the former Pakistani Minorities Minister who was assassinated earlier this year.

“I’m extremely pleased at the caliber of people gathered here,” said Baird.  “I know this is a challenging task, but, then again, Canadians stand for what is right, not what is easy, so I have no doubt we here today are up to that challenge.”

Baird stressed religious freedom was not “just freedom to believe” but “freedom to practice one’s religion.”

“It is our common duty to defend the rights of the afflicted, and to give voice to the voiceless.”

Panelist Fr. Raymond de Souza said freedom of religion is much more than freedom of belief or of worship, as U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton recently said. It is freedom to build places of worship, to control one’s internal governance, to build schools and establish universities and welfare agencies, he said. Defining religious freedom only in terms of worship “impoverishes the language” of religious liberty, he said.

American diplomat Thomas Farr, a religious freedom expert with the Berkeley Centre for Religion Peace and World Affairs, urged the new office to be proactive, rather than reactive, in responding to case-by-case persecution.

Farr said that although a reactive approach does save lives, “it’s like trying to empty the ocean with an eye-dropper.”

About 70 per cent of the world’s population live in countries with limited religious freedom, he said. A substantial proportion of religious minorities face violent persecution. Countries that do not have religious freedom nurture violence and conflict and export terrorism, he said, adding that religious freedom is linked to democracy, stability, and women’s rights.

Participants spoke of the challenges posed by radical Islam and that of China, where more Christians attend church on Sunday than in all of Europe and religions of all kinds are growing. Some addressed the need to set aside political correctness in discussing religious freedom; others, such as MP John Weston, founder of the Canadian Constitutional Foundation, warned against making religious freedom a pretext for bringing polygamy or female genital mutilation to Canada.

“Will we be defending the rights of Shariah advocates?” Weston asked.

Christians are the most widely persecuted group around the world, and some participants argued the religious freedom office should be weighted towards those groups experiencing the greatest persecution and the office should have representatives with “street cred” in fighting for religious freedom. Others argued, however, that the office must not be seen to be religious or identified with any religious group, but must seek a buy-in from the wider society.

“The time for political correctness is passé,” said B’nai Brith Canada CEO Frank Dimant. He said the various human rights agreements at the United Nations have “failed” and the agenda has been hijacked.

Several participants raised the problems of religious freedom within Canada, whether through human rights commissions or provincial educational policies contrary to the religious and conscience rights of parents.  Evangelical Fellowship of Canada legal counsel Don Hutchinson pointed out that schools are only focusing on one or two of the prohibited grounds for discrimination and are ignoring religion as one of the grounds.