Canada says it will fight religious persecution (but doesn't say how)

A year ago Walt told you about Shahbaz Bhatti, the only Christian minister in the so-called government of Pakistan. Mr. Bhatti had been quite vocal in calling for the repeal of Pakistan's anti-blasphemy laws, under which many Christians had been persecuted.

Not two months later, a fatwa issued against Mr. Bhatti was carried out. Assailants purportedly sent by al-Qaeda and the Taliban sprayed his car with bullets outside his parents' driveway, killing him instantly.

This kind of thing goes on all the time in the Third World, especially in Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Or hellholes like Nigeria and India, where Muslims and Hindus (respectively) fighting with Christians for souls. And of course there's China and Vietnam, where Communist régimes routinely jail, torture and even execute those who adhere to religious institutions not approved by the state.

Now, in a move that Walt finds not a little surprising, Canada's rightish Conservative government says it is preparing to carve out a new role for Canada as a "champion of religious rights abroad". This major shift in Canadian foreign policy is said to have its roots in... wait for it... the assassination of Shabaz Bhatti!

Jason Kenney, Canada's Minister of Immigration and Pandering to Minorities, is quoted in today's Globe and Mail as saying Mr. Bhatti made a major impression on Prime Minister Harpoon when they met shortly before Bhatti's death.

"The Prime Minister was deeply affected by this as was everyone who had the chance to meet him," said the minister. "His visit to Canada shortly before his assassination helped to galvanize within the government the reality of this kind of persecution."

The Conservatives say they were impressed by Bhatti’s refusal to stop fighting religious intolerance despite death threats. Mr. Kenney recalls that "just before I brought Shahbaz to meet the Prime Minister, I told the Prime Minister it would be a miracle if the man he was about to meet would be alive in a few months’ time." How prescient!

Well, whether it's to buy votes from immigrants, appease the "Christian Right", or honour and avenge Mr. Bhatti doesn't matter. The Tories are setting up an Office of Religious Freedom within the quite secular confines of the Department of Foreign Affairs – a controversial pledge that has drawn accusations of vote pandering and blurring lines between church and state.

However commendable may be the notion of compelling the persecutors of Christians to stop creating martyrs, Walt wonders exactly how the Canadian government plans to do this. What will the ORF do, exactly, to force its vision of religious freedom down the throats of, say, the Mullahs of Iraq and Iran?

Will Canada bomb Vietnam with 1000s of tiny Bibles? Will it invade the Middle Eastern bastions of the Islamic empire? Start a crusade, perhaps? The Chinese and the Arabs must be quaking in their boots!

Or is it possible that the Office of Religious Freedom may be merely full of sound and fury, signifying nothing? What do you think?