We Have Ways of Making You Pray

Tony Keene

As you go through the enrollment process, your employer demands to know your religion, which is then stamped on a metal badge. You are told you must wear this badge around your neck when you are on the job.  Your supervisor can go to your file at any time and find out what religion you adhere to, or don’t.

From then on, you frequently are required, as part of your job, to stand with other employees for addresses by religious ministers, almost always Christian. Social events, such as company lunches and dinners, will require you to accept enforced homilies from religious ministers, almost always Christian. Attendance at these events is often compulsory.

As well, depending on what your job requires of you, you may be ordered to attend compulsory counselling sessions with religious ministers, who are almost always Christian.

You could also be required, once a year, to enter a Christian church for a “voluntary” service that is in fact enforced with appeals to company loyalty, tradition, or veiled (and sometimes not-so-veiled) threats of unpleasant consequences. If you question the practice, or ask to be excused, you are subject to contempt, ridicule, and snark.

Sound unbelievable, really weird?

What I have just described is a matter of fact in the Canadian Armed Forces, the only government agency in which your boss at work concerns himself with your religion, and has the authority to dictate when, where, and how you exercise it.

In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada issued a unanimous landmark ruling in the Saguenay case, that government, all government, must be neutral towards religion. This is now almost entirely the case at municipal, regional, provincial, territorial, and federal government agencies.

Except in the military.

Religion, and specifically Christianity, is deeply threaded throughout the Forces’ heritage and history. It is the only state agency which actually has written regulations and orders governing how prayers are to be said, blessings given, and other religious rituals conducted. Units of the Forces, in particular Army regiments, have affiliations with Christian churches, designated prayers for any and all occasions, and regular events which include enforced religious observance.

In 2006 I watched, aghast, as the commanding officer of the Ceremonial Guard threw three soldiers off parade in Cartier Square Drill Hall, and effectively forced them out of the building, because they did not want to take part in a religious ritual. Three young people, who might well have been killed or wounded on some dangerous field in service to Canada, were forced to walk away from their regiment, their colours, and their fellow soldiers, their only crime being that they did not wish to pray with their boss at work.

What other public servant would have that authority?

Theoretically, according to the rules and regulations, military officers don’t have it either. But de facto, they do.  And they use it.

The regimental colours are placed on an altar of drums as Christian chaplains and ministers prepare to consecrate them with prayer. Although often seen as a benign and traditional event, these are federal government employees taking part in a compulsory religious ritual, under the direction of their superiors on the job. No other government agency would dream of doing this. (Photo: Tony Keene 2016)

During my four decades of service I was ordered to attend church services, religious counselling, and to take part in prayer at many ceremonial and social events. A Forces officer once demanded that I take part in group prayer before the start of a recreational canoe trip. My refusal resulted in five days of riverine ostracism. (Oddly enough, the only guy who spoke civilly to me on the trip was the chaplain!)

On my final tour of overseas duty I was ordered to take family reunification counselling from a Christian minister. My refusal resulted in an immediate threat of charges, and court martial. I was 57, had been married for 32 years, and was on my fourth operational deployment.

The “padre” from whom I was supposed to receive instruction was under 30, unmarried, and on her first tour. I could have counselled her.

The degree of religious conformity does vary across the Forces. It is more prevalent in the Navy than the Air Force; it is very prevalent in the Army’s combat units: infantry, armoured, and artillery. It is more prevalent in the Reserve, than the regular Force. Many of these units have direct affiliation with Christian churches, where they place their retired colours and attend annual services.

No other government agency has this, plus an embedded priesthood, paid for by the taxpayer.

In October of 2023, the Chaplain General issued an instruction to bring the chaplaincy into line with the Supreme Court decision, eight years late. This was immediately pounced upon by right-wing media and politicians as an attempt to ban prayer at Remembrance Day services. It was nothing of the sort. Almost all such ceremonies across Canada in November are Christian in nature, because they are for the most part run by Canada’s most-reactionary organization, The Royal Canadian Legion.

The military chaplaincy is an anachronism, and an insult to the Charter. It is long past time for it to change drastically, or just to go quietly.

The commanding officer of a regiment leads his unit to church. No other government agency gives its supervisors such authority.  Attendance, while theoretically voluntary, is often enforced through appeals to unit loyalty, ridicule, and contempt, and threats of consequences.

Then there’s the Cadet program.

This publicly funded and Forces-operated system of youth training is run by two groups of people, a) the sedentary Cadet Instructor Cadre, made up largely of officers who are for the most part blue-collar working-class conservatives with little real military experience, and b) a trio of civilian “leagues” which comprise a similar demographic.

Until the turn of the millennium, this program was heavily laced with religion, specifically Christianity, which manifested itself at summer training centres in compulsory attendance at Sunday service, compulsory counselling by Christian ministers each week of summer training, command-imposed prayer at the lowering of the flag each evening, and Christian prayer at all graduation parades, band concerts, and other ceremonies.

(The “Padre’s Hour,” as it was then called, provided the chaplains with unfettered, and unsupervised, access to the Cadets. At the camp at Trenton, ON, this was used for decades as an opportunity for religious instruction. The Catholic chaplains held compulsory catechism classes. It was widely known among the Cadets themselves as “Bible Camp.”)

Any Cadet who was sent home for whatever reason was required to speak with a Christian minister as part of the out-processing.

Changes have been made, but summer training centres across the country still hold religious, or pseudo-religious, events, such as the Banff “Freedom of the City” parade, which is in fact a church service held in a park, and the Blackdown “Sunset Ceremony” in Ontario, where even the public in attendance is directed to stand and doff hats for a homily delivered by (you guessed it!) a Christian minister.

Again, would any other government-sponsored youth program be able to get away with this?

Chaplains of course do much more than just pray on parade, but most of what they do in the family support and counselling roles could easily be done (as it is elsewhere) by professional civilians, either employed as non-public fund staff, or under personal services contracts. This would save millions of dollars annually which could go for training and operations, which is what the military is there for.