Is secularism church-state separation or government neutrality in matters of religion? What does state religious neutrality look like? When the Supreme Court of Canada issues a ruling, is that the final word? What is the difference between a welcome, a traditional greeting, a cultural practice, and a prayer, especially in the context of indigenous nations and reconciliation?
Dr. Teale Phelps Bondaroff (@TealePB), research coordinator at the British Columbia Humanist Association, answers all these questions and more. His team at the BCHA contacted every municipality in British Columbia, Manitoba, and Ontario to determine whether they are in compliance with the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2015 Saguenay ruling, which unambiguously decreed that opening municipal council sessions with a prayer was unlawful. He describes how some municipalities try to sneak in religious content with “stealth prayer”, and why ecumenical prayers, non-denominational prayers, or rotating prayers from different religious groups, are bound to fail if the goal is to have an inclusive democracy.
Podcast for Inquiry is brought to you by the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Hosted by Leslie Rosenblood. Produced by Lee Shields, Zack Dumont, and Martin Zielinski. Graphic design by Nikolay Nikitushkin. Music by Anthony Lazaro. Support Podcast for Inquiry on Patreon: https://patreon.com/PodcastforInquiry. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@centreforinquiry.ca.
Why is BCHA researching Manitoba and Ontario?
Are you usurping Humanist Canada’s responsibilities?
What is Humanist Canada doing in this respect?
Hello, Robert.
The British Columbia Humanist Association naturally focuses on BC, but occasionally they expand their scope to the rest of Canada. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Humanist Canada shares many core values with BCHA and CFIC; we are stronger together, and have collaborated on initiatives in the past (for example, CFIC and Humanist Canada, along with the Canadian Secular Alliance, successfully lobbied the federal government to repeal Canada’s blasphemy law). No organization has exclusive purview over any issue or region.
Your final question is best addressed to Humanist Canada (I am a member but not an active volunteer for the organzation).
Hi Robert, Ian Bushfield, BCHA Executive Director here.
I don’t recall if Teale mentioned this in his conversation with Leslie, but the project naturally expanded from our work here in BC. We’d completed our audit of BC municipalities and had some surplus research capacity (volunteers and summer researchers), so we tasked them to expand our survey. This ended up being more efficient since we’d already established our methodology and could achieve this much faster than simply transferring the responsibility to other groups. We have completed the survey from coast-to-coast and should have more data coming out in 2024 on Alberta, Saskatchewan and Atlantic Canada. We likely won’t have much to say about Quebec as they’re largely in compliance and there aren’t enough sizeable communities in the Territories to make it a fruitful analysis.
We have also looked at prayers in the House of Commons and provincial legislatures (Legislative Prayer Across Canada) and also the role of religion in each province’s school act. This is largely for the same reason as above but also because sometimes we find that these surveys don’t exist in one place and we want to reference them in our reports, so we bring them together and publish the results.
That said, we are well aware of our limits, particularly in advocating outside British Columbia, so we regularly work with Humanist Canada, CFIC and other freethought groups across the country. In particular, we’re eager to work with local groups in releasing the results of our research and leveraging their local knowledge to advocate for change. We’re also eager to use our resources to create straightforward advocacy products that less-resourced local groups can use to effect change in their communities.
Of course all of this takes time and energy, so just like CFIC, we’re always eager for your support.