DHARAMSHALA: Honourable Rob Nicholson, P.C., Q.C., M.P. for Niagara Falls, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Canadian Government, announced the establishment of an External Advisory Committee (EAC) on religious freedom on 22 June.

The Committee comprises of 23 prominent leaders from a wide variety of Canadian faith and belief communities representative of Canada’s diversity. The committee will advise the Office of Religious Freedom on the exercise of its mandate to promote and defend religious freedom internationally as a central element of Canada’s principled foreign policy.

The committee is chaired by Father Raymond J. de Souza, a Roman Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Kingston and Chaplain at the Newman Centre, Queen’s University. Corinne Box of the Bahá’í Community of Canada and Malik Talib, President of the Aga Khan Council for Canada, will serve as vice-chairs of the committee.

Tsering Tsomo, the President of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Tibetan Association of Ontario and the Tibetan Canadian Cultural Centre based in Toronto, has been selected as one of the committee members. Ms. Tsomo has a vast experience of working at a not-for-profit, multi-service women’s charitable organization. For the past 25 years, she has worked for the Tibetan diaspora community, both in India and Canada, in a range of government and not-for-profit organizations.

Other members of the committee include Sayed Nabil Abbas, the imam of the Lebanese Islamic Centre in Montréal, Eric Adriaans, national executive director of Centre for Inquiry Canada, Rabbi Reuven Bulka, a rabbi, writer, broadcaster and activist in Ottawa, Ontario, and former co-president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Peter Bhatti is the president and founder of International Christian Voice, among others.

The External Advisory Committee will meet semi-annually.