The ambassador in charge of Ottawa’s Office of Religious Freedom defends his mission to support global communities under threat. But some critics see the office as a political tool.<\/p>\n
By: Olivia Ward
Foreign Affairs Reporter
Published on Fri Feb 14 2014<\/p>\n
OTTAWA\u2014The bleak winter sun streams in through the windows of the fourth-floor government office, framing Andrew Bennett in a hazy halo of light.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Which is appropriate, because Bennett, a boyish and telegenic 41, is the ambassador in charge of Canada\u2019s Office of Religious Freedom, the body appointed a year ago by the Harper government to draw Canada\u2019s line in the sand against religious violence, intolerance and repression overseas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
And it\u2019s all with a modest staff of five, and equally modest budget of $5 million, $4.2 million of which is earmarked for a fund to support global religious communities that are \u201cfacing intolerance or persecution in their country.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The challenges are massive. According to the Pew Research Center<\/a>\u2019s Religion and Public Life project, the level of religious hostility throughout the world is the highest it has recorded over the past six years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In the past week\u2019s headlines alone, tens of thousands of Muslims have fled Christian militias in the Central African Republic<\/a>, while Muslims killed Christians and burned homes. In Iraq, Shiite militias\u2019 attacks<\/a> on Sunnis and reprisal killings threaten a new civil war. In Egypt, Islamist militants have attacked security forces during an intensifying military crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. In Syria, the shrinking Christian community is besieged and being shelled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cPew says that today roughly one-third of countries either have high restrictions on religious practice or social hostilities are high,\u201d says Bennett. \u201cWhen you look at it in terms of numbers, it\u2019s roughly 75 per cent of the world\u2019s population.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n And he adds, \u201cone reason this office was established was because of the trend we\u2019re seeing to the targeting of religious communities throughout the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In Canada, however, the office is still little-known.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Although Bennett has over the past year met officials, diplomats and religious groups in 10 countries, rebuked governments from Kazakhstan to Sri Lanka and met leaders of a spectrum of faiths, the fact that his office exists is met with a shrug by some Canadians and skepticism by others.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cYou have to see it as the Conservatives looking to build a winning coalition that can deliver a majority,\u201d says Nik Nanos, president of Nanos Research. \u201cI believe the strategy is to rely on the core support of fiscally conservative voters, and graft on top of that special issue and interest groups, which could be faith or culturally based.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI know they are explicitly trying to target evangelicals,\u201d adds Andrew Grenville, chief research officer for Angus Reid Public Opinion. \u201cIt\u2019s a relatively small but not insignificant part of the population. But when you\u2019re trying to go from 38 to 40 per cent they are very important \u2014 and they also get out and vote.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n None of that daunts Bennett. A dedicated Catholic who once studied in a seminary, he shifted from Roman to the more formal Eastern Catholicism, where the liturgy is chanted as in ancient Byzantine rites.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In public and in private Bennett is a True Believer, fiercely devoted to his faith. A subdeacon in Ottawa\u2019s Holy Cross Ukrainian Catholic Chaplaincy, he told the Catholic Register<\/a>, \u201cwe\u2019ve tried to bring back some of what were originally monastic practices into the life of a parish.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Choosing the Ukrainian church, he admits, was unusual for someone of Scots-Irish background. \u201cIt says a lot about Canada and our wonderful diversity of culture and faiths. That a young guy from north Toronto who grew up in a Catholic home and went to an Anglican boys\u2019 school should find himself a Ukrainian Catholic at 30 is pretty interesting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019m a Ukrainian Greek Catholic, and the church in Canada is so well integrated in the fabric of society that for the Canadian Christian experience it\u2019s a good spot to be.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When Bennett was chosen as ambassador for the office\u2019s first three-year term, he was dean of Augustine College, a private Christian school in Ottawa, and earlier a federal bureaucrat. His doctorate degree, from University of Edinburgh, was in political science. He has also studied theology, and for a \u201cperiod of time\u201d entered a seminary.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In an age where questioning faith is a given, Bennett views secularism with caution, walking a fine line between church and state \u2014 a line that worries some who want to maintain Canada\u2019s traditional, but still contentious, separation of powers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIn Canada and I\u2019d say the liberal western democracies, we\u2019ve pushed any expression of faith so far into the private sphere in the last half-century or so that we\u2019ve sometimes forgotten how to have that faith-based discourse, and engage faith,\u201d he argues. \u201cIn fact, the majority of Canadians would identify as having a religious faith.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n And he maintains that the new office isn\u2019t just symbolic, a hollow nameplate on the foreign affairs department\u2019s door. \u201cMy colleagues in the foreign service have been dealing with religious freedom issues for decades,\u201d he says. \u201cBut in our office not only are we speaking to a growing trend of religious persecution, but we\u2019re supporting (their) efforts in monitoring and speaking out against it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Created to fulfil a 2011 Conservative campaign promise, Ottawa\u2019s Office of Religious Freedom has antecedents in America, where the Clinton administration\u2019s 1998 International Religious Freedom Act<\/a> created a U.S. Office of International Religious Freedom in the State Department. A separate Commission on International Religious Freedom of 10 members was formed to advise Congress and the president. Both are more muscular than the fledgling body in Ottawa.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIn the U.S. they also have an Office of Faith-Based Community Initiatives,\u201d Bennett says with a smile. \u201cThere\u2019s a special envoy on post-Holocaust issues, and an envoy on persecution of Christians. In true Canadian fashion we\u2019re very economical. We house them all in one shop, and it works very well.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Nevertheless, the fact that Ottawa\u2019s first ambassador on religion is Christian \u2014 and the focus of much of his work on the persecution of Christians \u2014 has raised suspicions about Tory political motives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Others say that the attention is long overdue. According to Pew, Christians are harassed in the largest number of countries worldwide.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI was one of several on a panel who strongly advocated for the creation of the office,\u201d says Frank Dimant of the Jewish advocacy and human rights organization B\u2019nai Brith Canada. \u201cThe media in general ignore the persecution of Christians, but massacres and the blowing up of churches are almost daily occurrences.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n He adds, \u201cwe should be looking at where the animosity is coming from.\u201d It\u2019s a reference to radical Islam, which has targeted religious minorities of a number of faiths.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Muslim issues are among the biggest challenges for Bennett. The community itself is divided. And although he has engaged with Ahmadiyya and Ismaili sects, which have strong representation in Canada, as well as more mainstream groups, some others are less impressed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI am an expert in Shia studies, but no one called to consult me on my views,\u201d said Liyakat Takim, Sharjah chair in Global Islam at McMaster University. \u201cThere is tremendous religious oppression of Shia Muslims, for instance in Bahrain, which Canada considers a friendly country. I don\u2019t hear them speaking out there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Amin Elshorbagy, national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, says the emphasis on Muslim minorities has made consultation limited. \u201cIt comes back to a balanced perspective. In the past the voice of Canada was heard because it was perceived as a neutral country.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Pleasing all of the people even a fraction of the time is difficult for politicians. For Bennett, who deals with one of the world\u2019s most volatile and emotional issues, it\u2019s virtually impossible.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n His progress in combating global religious repression is made more difficult by the refusal of powerful countries like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia to discuss it, and by the touchy diplomatic relations they have with Canada.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cOur whole raison d\u2019etre is to engage where we can,\u201d Bennett says. That may mean simply reminding repressive countries of their obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights<\/a>. Rights, he adds, that should include missionary activity. \u201cThe acid test of whether a country recognizes religious freedom is \u2018Do you have the freedom to change your religion?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n His mandate is also to defend the freedom to reject religious faith. In countries like Pakistan and Iran, conviction under apostasy and blasphemy laws can mean death.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been pushing (the Office of Religious Freedom) to defend apostates who have left religion, people who are atheists in countries where they face the death penalty,\u201d says Justin Trottier of the Canadian Secular Alliance.<\/a> \u201cOther than flowery language about their stand on atheism they haven\u2019t done anything to back up their claims.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Bennett maintains that freedom from religion is also a human right to be defended, and he has spoken out for an atheist blogger in Kazakhstan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n He has had discussions with Pakistani politicians on the blasphemy laws, which have sparked fatal attacks on those who have spoken out against them. Although he sees little possibility of short-term change, he is urging a more tightly controlled application of the law, which is often used to settle worldly scores. \u201cI think there is a genuine desire to address the situation,\u201d he says. \u201cHopefully over time we can engage in dialogue that leads to reform.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n China, strenuously wooed by Ottawa for trade contracts, is a different challenge for an envoy charged with speaking out on a subject that raises diplomatic hackles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n There, religion is looked on as a potential threat, Communist Party members must be atheists and government bodies tightly regulate the practice of five \u201crecognized\u201d religions. Crackdowns have worsened against Tibetan Buddhists and Uighur Muslims, as well as the Falun Gong sect. Pew\u2019s recent report rated religious hostility in China as \u201chigh\u201d for the first time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe current situation in China is not acceptable,\u201d says Bennett. \u201cIn Canada we need a multi-faceted policy approach about commercial relations and bilateral interests, but we need to also emphasize repeatedly the human rights aspect. I have no problem speaking frankly in any country where we have concerns about religious freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Those countries include Kazakhstan, where the Christian minority has been targeted and religious materials censored. In Ukraine, Bennett criticized intimidation of Catholic university students and administration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In Turkey he met the Patriarch of Constantinople and discussed the challenges facing Christians there and in the Middle East. And he has protested the imprisonment of Iran\u2019s moderate Grand Ayatollah Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi and helped to obtain the release of a Muslim leader detained in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Office of Religious Freedom has launched a project in Indonesia, where Christians and Ahmadiyya Muslims have been brutally attacked by Islamic extremists. A second of two projects will begin this year in Nigeria \u2014 a country dangerously divided between Christians and Muslims \u2014bringing together Christian and Muslim women for dialogue that could lead to deeper understanding.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n More projects will follow in the next two years, chosen from at least 100 proposals submitted to the Religious Freedom Fund.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But for critics of the Harper government the question remains: does planting Canada\u2019s footprint on the turbulent territory of religious freedom most benefit the oppressed, or the politicians back home?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n From Canada\u2019s religious communities the reviews are generally positive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe are pleased with Bennett\u2019s first year,\u201d says Gerald Filson, chair of the Canadian Interfaith Conversation and public affairs director for the Baha\u2019i Community of Canada<\/a>. Members of the Baha\u2019i faith suffer repression and discrimination in Iran.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI was very impressed when I met him,\u201d Filson said. \u201cHe\u2019s realistic, focusing on countries where (Canada) can maybe make changes on the ground, like Belize, Indonesia and Turkey. To make religious freedom an international norm, any way you do it is good.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Harper\u2019s highly publicized recent visit to Israel, in which Bennett played a supporting role, won rave reviews from the Jewish community\u2019s supporters of the Israeli government, as has Ottawa\u2019s pro-Israel policy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Coptic Christians are happy with the attention they have received from Bennett\u2019s office. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely important,\u201d says Maher Rizkalla, who heads the Canadian Coptic Association<\/a>\u2019s Ontario chapter. \u201cReligious discrimination is a problem throughout the Middle East and Egypt in particular. Through diplomacy I am sure we will get results.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Sikhs are also impressed. \u201cBennett has taken the time to understand the faith and concerns we have for co-religionists abroad,\u201d said Balpreet Singh Boparai of the World Sikh Organization of Canada<\/a>. \u201cWe brought up issues we are facing in Afghanistan, Pakistan, religious freedom in India and banning of turbans in France. He listened closely. I think he is doing a marvelous job.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Bennett has had dialogues with a number of Hindu religious representatives. But, says David Poopalapillai of the Canadian Tamil Congress<\/a> \u2013 which includes many Canadian Hindus \u2013 the religious freedom office is \u201ca good initiative that doesn\u2019t go far enough. They should reach out to the community with public meetings, so people will know they are there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n