http://ottawacitizen.com: The Liberal government is facing pressure to keep the Office of Religious Freedom open, after representatives from three influential faith groups wrote Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion on Friday asking him not to scrap it.
The open letter from organizations representing Jewish, Sikh and Ahmadiyya Muslim Canadians underscores the potential political cost of shuttering the three-year-old office, which the previous Conservative government established with much fanfare.
The Citizen reported last week that unless the Liberal government intervenes, current Ambassador for Religious Freedom Andrew Bennett’s three-year term will expire on Feb. 18. The office’s mandate and funding, about $5 million a year, will run out on March 31.
Dion spokesman Adam Barratt said at the time that a decision had not been made and the minister was “examining options and how best to build on the work that has been accomplished in the area of religious freedom while promoting human rights as a whole.”
But in a letter to Dion, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs CEO Shimon Fogel, World Sikh Organization of Canada president Amritpal Singh Shergill, and Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Canada national secretary Asif Khan expressed their support for the office’s “valuable work.”
Categories: Accepting Islam, Ahmadiyyat: True Islam, Americas, Canada, The Muslim Times