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Leslie Rosenblood

Are you (or do you know) an Alberta lawyer with Human Rights experience?

CFIC was recently contacted by a Sergeant (I will use the pseudonym “Bob”) in the Calgary Police Service (CPS). He brought to our attention that many of CPS’ informal practices assume its members are Christian by default.

A few examples of how Christianity is embedded in the CPS:

• When the CPS built a new headquarters a little over a decade ago, it included a chapel. The design clearly makes it a Christian room of worship, with an altar, pews, stained-glass windows, and a Christian saint prominently displayed. A CPS document describing its intended use listed predominantly Christian ceremonies (“wedding services, baptisms and christenings”). While lip service was paid to other faiths (“Any or all of the rows can be removed to accommodate special purposes, such as First Nations ceremonies, the placement of prayer mats for Muslim prayer services”), the document makes clear that the standard, default, and assumed use of the chapel was for Christians and Christian rites. 
• Before getting married, Bob and his fiancee took the CPS couples’ course, intended to assist officers and their partners with their relationships. The instructor — a psychologist (with inflated credentials) under contract for 23 years with the CPS — stated couples with previous sexual partners cannot achieve the same level of intimacy as those that “saved themselves” for marriage. While a common Christian trope, there is no evidence that couples without previous sexual partners have happier, healthier, or longer relationships. 
• The instructor also stated LGBT couples would need a separate course “because of the number of sexual partners they have” and “they would make the straight couples feel uncomfortable.”
• Bob asked to provide a secular invocation at a service dinner in lieu of the customary Christian grace. The request was grudgingly granted, but the management team made it clear such efforts were unwelcome (loudly proclaiming “Amen” after the invocation).
• The CPS has a District Chaplaincy program. However, unlike the Canadian military (listen to Podcast for Inquiry with Marie-Claire Khadij to learn more about the Canadian Armed Force chaplaincy program), all 13 chaplains in the CPS are Christian pastors. There is no representation for other faiths, First Nations people, or the non-religious.
• Some of the CPS chaplains represent the Billy Graham Association, which believes (among other things) in evangelizing Christianity and that “marriage is exclusively the union of one genetic male and one genetic female.” Needless to say, this is hardly inclusive of non-Christians and members of the LGBT community. 

The CPS has made some improvements in recent years:

• The chapel was renamed Memorial Hall (likely as a result of a complaint filed by Bob). 
• The “intimacy” portion of the couples’ course has been removed.
• The CPS instituted an official policy of religious neutrality (which has since been removed).
• Recruits are no longer invited to seemingly secular ceremonies that turn into a Catholic mass, though the CPS still hosts Catholic services including a Christmas Eve mass).

Nonetheless, in many respects the Calgary Police Service remains a “Christian-default” workplace. Bob has faced retaliation in ways subtle and overt for his attempts to make the CPS a more inclusive, welcoming, and secular institution. Therefore, in September 2021, Bob submitted an official complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

The AHRC has reviewed Bob’s complaint, and has accepted it as valid (most files are rejected at this stage). It will therefore proceed to a conciliation hearing (yet to be scheduled). 

CFIC will be writing a letter of support for Bob’s case, outlining the legal requirement for the Calgary Police Service, as an agent of the state, to respect the principle of secularism: not privileging one faith over another, or belief over non-belief. 

If you know an Alberta lawyer with human rights experience, please let me know at rosenblood@centreforinquiry.ca.

We will keep you apprised of Bob’s case at the AHRC in future editions of Critical Links.

Leslie Rosenblood

Podcast for Inquiry has just wrapped its first year, and what a year it’s been! Here’s a sample of what we’ve accomplished:

• Big names on the podcast: Steven Pinker, Julie Bindel, Jonathan Kay, and William Davis;
• Tackled some challenging and controversial topics: Bill 21 (both sides), free speech, and artificial intelligence;
• Fascinating conversations with amazing people: Catherine Nixey on her book The Darkening Age, Emma Allen-Vercoe on microbes, and David Good on the Yanomami;
• Troubling and dark subjects: the state of democracy with Miriam Mufti; the early life of dictators with Brandon Gauthier, and human rights abuses in North Korea with Sandra Fahy;
• Sheer intellectual joys to explore: government no longer being defined by territory with Eric Schnurer; futures studies with Joseph Voros; and Chinese philosophy with Bryan Van Norden.

And it’s just going to get better.

The first episode of our 2023 season will be phenomenal. I talk with Phil Zuckerman about his book What It Means to be Moral, and he pulls no punches. If you want a full-throated, no-holds-barred attack on the foundation of religious “morality” that is worthy of any of the Four Horsemen of Atheism, you’ll want to listen to our next show (to be published January 4). 

I’m so incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished, and humbly thank you for giving me the opportunity to be Podcast for Inquiry’s host. It has been, and remains, my passion project.

I want to give special thanks to Matt Payne, who has been our editor and producer from the start. He made every episode look and sound professional, even at the beginning when I was using my laptop’s internal microphone to record my voice. He made sure every episode was edited, produced, and published on time, and has always been on hand to address any issues that arise. We couldn’t have done it with you, Matt. Thank you so very much. 

For those that haven’t yet listened to Podcast for Inquiry, you’re missing out on a great conversation, every two weeks. For those who have subscribed, thank you — and let me know (podcast@centreforinquiry.ca) what you like and where we can improve. 

It’s been a fantastic year, and I’m very excited for everything we have planned for 2023.

Protecting Blasphemers is an annual panel discussion highlighting the most recent blasphemy issues of the year. We aim to discover the areas where the global secular community can work together to build support mechanisms to protect blasphemers running from persecution. Each year we also pay our respects to a fellow atheist activist we lost. This year’s event is in loving memory of Matt Kovach of Atheist Alliance International.

Protecting Blasphemers IV Panel will be held on Zoom: Saturday, December 10th, 2022, at 4pm EST.

This year’s speakers are; THE “SECULAR 5.” This team consists of directors of the five leading atheist refugee assistance programs around the globe. Secular Rescue program of CFI U.S., Atheist Support Network of Atheist Alliance International, Secular Underground Network, Atheist Refugee Relief Program, and Atheist Refugee Assistance Program of Ateizm Dernegi International.

You will hear from Matthew Cravatta, Tonoy Emroz, Maarten Freriks, and other leading activists.

The event will be hosted by CFIC’s Human Rights Chair Onur Romano.

Please register for this event through Eventbrite.

Early Bird Tickets still available: Book before June 15th & SAVE!

BAHA (Bluewater, Atheist, Humanist, Agnostics) would like to invite you to their inaugural Conference, featuring speakers Gretta Vosper, Bob Ripley, Hemant Mehta, Dave Warnock, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Dr Joshua Bowen, Seth Andrews, Dan Barker.

More information is available here.

BAHA is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the image of freethinkers and atheists and to give back to our communities. All profits from our conference are returned back to the communities. We come from an area known as Bluewater Country, with members from both sides of the river separating Sarnia, Ontario, and Pt Huron, Michigan.

CFIC is proud to announce the launch of our Podcast for Inquiry in mid-January 2022. Each episode will focus on an issue of interest to the CFIC community: human rights, secularism, democratic and humanist values, reason, science, activism, and more. Our first few episodes include conversations about the state of media and journalism in Canada, whether cultural change can only come from within, and a two-part series discussing Quebec’s Bill 21 (the “religious symbols” legislation).

The first episode will be published in mid-January, but you can subscribe today to be one of the first people to listen to the Podcast for Inquiry. A brief preview of our first few episodes is available now on Spotify, and please subscribe in your favourite podcast app, or via our RSS feed.

Let us know what you think! Please email us a note here.