Leslie Rosenblood
The BC Humanist Association is looking for volunteers to help with their Saguenay Project. For the past several years, the BCHA has been investigating unconstitutional prayers in municipal council meetings across the country (see the Do cities listen to the Supreme Court? episode of Podcast for Inquiry). This work has helped ensure that municipalities adhere to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Saguenay, which found that including prayer in municipal council meetings was unconstitutional.
The project has released a number of reports that have helped increase compliance. For example, BCHA advocacy and research helped reduce the number of BC municipalities violating Saguenay from 26 in 2018 to seven in 2022 (see We Yelled At Them Until They Stopped). The BCHA is currently focusing on Ontario and updating its previous report on the topic, and will then work on reports on Alberta and Saskatchewan.
BCHA is looking for volunteers to fill the following roles: Transcribe prayers from video recordings of meetings. Locate and review the agendas, minutes, and videos of municipal council meetings. Help with advocacy on the ground once reports are released. Full instructions will be provided, and hours are very flexible: You can pop in and transcribe prayers when you can.
If you are interested in helping out with the project, please contact the BCHA Research Coordinator, Dr. Teale Phelps Bondaroff.
Thank you for your work on this.
However, municipal councils aside, there is one federal agency which has completely ignored the Saguenay ruling, except by lip service.
This is the military, the Canadian Armed Forces, which is the only governmental agency in the country which gives its officials (officers) the authority to dictate religious activity for their personnel, and in many cases for members of the public who are in attendance.
These activities includes prayers on parade, where the troops are under command, consecration of Colours (and their laying up in Christian churches), annual formal church services (church parades) and the arbitrary use of ministers to add pomp and circumstance to many events.
In my four decades of service, I was several times threatened with discipline for refusing to attend compulsory religious events. Only the law and the Charter saved me.
It’s still going on.
Thanks for your comment, Tony.
For better or worse, the Saguenay ruling applies only to municipalities; the federal legislature, as well as provincial ones, are not bound by the ruling. Each has charted its own course on prayers before legislative sessions.
We are reporting on, and supporting, a Calgary Police Sergeant, “Bob”, who has filed a human rights complaint within Alberta due to CPS’ “Christian-default” behaviours.
You are correct, Tony, in your key point – despite the progress Canada has made in recent years to becoming a more secular nation, we still have a long way to go. CFIC will continue to advocate and agitate for genuinely secular governance in Canada.
Leslie Rosenblood, CFIC Secular Chair