There’s not much going on here these days but if you’re still following this feed, make sure to check out my new project: PolitiCoast – a Canadian politics podcast.

Our marketing’s so good we’ve already been accused of hiding our funding.

Is this new podcast funded by someone? Its timing and apparent marketing budget are suspicious. https://t.co/CmdX3Vui5u

— Max Fawcett (@maxfawcett) 3 October 2016

Subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, etc. Or just follow the blog for updates.

We’re going to be recording every Thursday night with a goal of releasing by Friday morning. Plus there will be some bonus episodes scattered throughout (like our teaser following the US presidential debate).

That said, the focus is mostly on looking at politics from a BC lens, since almost no one else is (especially now that The Strategists are reportedly calling it quits).

And like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Clark’s Liberal government is looking to overhaul the law that regulates over 27,000 non-profit societies, including almost every active freethought organisation in the province. Many of the reforms are likely good ideas, like allowing societies to be registered and file documents electronically; however, at least one section would potentially allow members of the public to sue non-profits if they feel they are “carrying on activities that are detrimental to the public interest.”

Given that every non-profit is already required by the same law to operate in the public interest, there seems no reason to open non-profits up to the risk of frivolous lawsuits. Vancouver community advocate Sandy Garossino believes this proposal is designed to allow the province’s oil and mining industries to sue environmental NGOs. By the same logic, religious groups could use this same clause to persecute atheist and pro-choice organisations by claiming they are a threat to “traditional values.”

Most frustratingly, the government’s White Paper has been hiding on their website for months with little notification to the thousands of non-profits that are going to be affected by this. Every organisation in the province should have been told about this consultation and given the chance to respond.

The paper is 166 pages. There is simply not enough time to know what other changes will impact non-profits in the province. A quick glance suggests extra reporting requirements and changes to what needs to be in the by-laws.

The government needs to extend the deadline for responses and seek feedback from those who are set to be affected.

Here’s my letter:

As a former member of a BC society’s board of directors and staff member for two societies, I am worried by the quiet nature of this consultation. I only became aware that the government was considering on reforming the Society Act yesterday and in that time have not had a chance to carefully consider the 166-page white paper you have produced.

I don’t think my situation is unique. Every one of the 27,000 BC societies should have been notified that the government is considering re-writing the rules they are governed by. The consultation must be extended until this happens.

While many of the reforms are likely good ideas, such as allowing societies to be registered and file documents electronically, at least one section – 99 – seems to open organisations to frivolous lawsuits from members of the public. The section would allow non-profits to be sued if someone feels they are “carrying on activities that are detrimental to the public interest.”

Given that every non-profit is already required by the same law to operate in the public interest, there seems no rational reason to open non-profits up to this risk. Many non-profits are set to challenge the status quo and push for societal change. These actions inevitably bring about critics who would welcome the ability to sue to protect their positions of privilege rather than defend themselves in the public debate.

Please scrap section 99 and extend the deadline for responses until you are able to seek feedback from those organisations who are set to be affected.

Case in point, a Victoria Times-Columnist blog asks “Has religion become a dirty word?“

It argues that Victoria, BC, with a non-religious population of 51% according to Statistics Canada’s 2011 National Household Survey and potentially as high as 64% from the 2013 BCHA poll, has become anti-religious. Such is the secular identity that the religious are made to feel “sheepish” and ashamed of their habit.

Yet without citing any specific evidence of wide-spread anti-religious hate crimes* or even anecdotes of real religious persecution, I have to call bullshit.

Religion has simply lost its place of privilege. One is not assumed to be good just because they are religious. It’s little more than a curious quirk of a shrinking portion of the population.

While some anti-theists cheer for the day when religion is a dirty word, this is the future I more hope for: where religion is a private matter and people don’t feel entitled to force their beliefs onto others.

Victoria isn’t hostile to religion, it has become indifferent to it.

*I did briefly look for whether I could find a break down of the number of religious hate crimes by city to compare whether secular Victoria and Vancouver showed a different rate than other, more religious cities, but the data isn’t nicely collected and the incident rate is fairly low. Only a few hundred hate crimes are reported each year across the entire country and only a fraction of those target religion (most are racial). It would be hard therefore, to detect a meaningful trend. Nevertheless, we should be glad those numbers are small. I may still look into this question for a future post.

A pretty slick ad that’s pretty hard to find fault with.

I’ll skip over the fact the title needed a copy-editor* and who’s listed as the media contact** and instead focus on the fact that the latest post on their website is calling for donations for a billboard campaign that has been approved in Vancouver:

CBS Outdoor has accepted our ads, and they will be up in the Vancouver area in the next few days.

Within a week of Pattison rejecting an ad, CBS approves it and plans to hang it. This sounds to me like both companies were approached at the same time. This would imply that Pattison may simply have a policy to only run exclusive ads (something I could believe).

Let’s assume with CFI for a second, though, that the rejection was solely motivated by the content of the ad. The argument that CFI is making seems to be that since Pattison maintained an effective monopoly over advertising in Metro Vancouver, their rejection amounted to censorship. This is would invoke the 2009 Supreme Court of Canada case involving the BCTF.

But apparently another advertising agency is willing to host the ads, which seems to take some of the steam out of that argument. I mean, if you are still able to get your message out, you can’t really say you’re being censored. The right to freedom of expression does not necessarily guarantee one the right to a stage to promote that speech.

Nevertheless, I still agree that Pattison shouldn’t be rejecting the ad, especially without providing cause (benign or otherwise). So it will be interesting to see if CFI does pursue the human rights complaint and the results of that.

Finally, I also take exception with the last line of the press release, where CFI President Kevin Smith argues against “the use of human rights apparatuses as tools of censorship.” This line plays into the hands of the right-wing bigots and fear-mongers who promote the idea that the Human Rights Tribunals are kangaroo courts designed to persecute Christians and Libertarians. When, in reality, they are legitimate tools to achieve justice for marginalized communities that can’t afford to access the traditional justice system. Mostly they deal with issues of employment and housing but even their far less frequent use in defending victims of hate speech is laudable. But that’s an entire post on its own (see Joyce Arthur’s arguments in favour of hate speech laws for a start).

To summarize: Good luck to CFI with the complaint and the billboards. They look sharp and it’s good to see both genders (and hopefully some racial diversity in the next round). Just try to be a bit clearer on your messaging next time.

—

*Apparently you can say “New Round” twice in the same sentence if it’s the title.

**I thought he was leaving CFI Canada months to years ago now.

Nevertheless, parents in the ironically named Godson Elementary School in Abbotsford were shocked by the distribution of Bibles to their children during class time. This violates the District’s own policy, which permits the distribution of religious propaganda following a consent form.

Beverly Egan, one of the parents, says her son was offered a Bible in class despite a permission slip never coming home.

The District and School Board deny this complaint and say the procedure was followed with a total of six students returning slips for Bibles in the school.

That so few students are requesting Bibles raises another question of why this policy continues to be defended besides to attempt to put social pressure on other families to convert to the dominant religion?

Hopefully Egan and the other parents can receive some support from groups like the BCHA and their Fraser Valley affiliate.

They likely have grounds to take their case to BC’s Human Rights Tribunal, especially after the Chouinard’s win against the Niagara School District’s attempt on the issue of Gideon Bibles.

Take for example, this new piece in the Vancouver Sun which blames the local tax system for “scaring off potential businesses.”

Author Roslyn Kunin notes that 46 new businesses were licenses in the City of Vancouver between 1999 to 2012 when the population grew by 80,000. Never mind that no context (or source) is given for this number, we are merely supposed to be shocked that this number amounts to a mere 4 per year. In a quick search, I couldn’t find any comparables*, which makes the number meaningless. Perhaps this is high, perhaps it is low, I don’t know.

The author then makes the leap that it is local corporate taxes keeping businesses away from the city, even noting that “both business and residential properties are taxed, but residents vote.” A fact that is true now but for a long time businesses were guaranteed a vote under the peculiar BC Corporate Vote scheme.

No actual proof is offered linking Vancouver’s corporate tax rate to the number of licenses issued or that lower tax rates would actually increase the number of Vancouver start-ups (many argue that the city is actually low-taxed and great for start ups). I could easily make the argument that Vancouver’s high real estate prices and low office vacancy rates equally turn away new businesses. From one real estate analyst:

Downtown Vancouver’s office market typically has one of the lowest vacancy rates of any metropolitan core in Canada. … Lease rates in Downtown Vancouver are among the highest in Canada and are anticipated to experience upward pressure until new office towers come on stream in 2015.

…

Retail space in Downtown Vancouver remains in demand but a lack of supply is impeding further investment in the market.

…

An overall lack of supply restrains deal and dollar volumes and contributes to the highest valued industrial real estate in North America.

But go ahead Kunin, keep spouting your anti-tax apologetics and pursuing that race to the bottom.

—

*I was able to access Open Data sources for business licenses in Vancouver and Calgary, but it wasn’t clear when these were first issued. Vancouver, for example, lists each license which must be renewed annually. There are some 60,000 licenses in that list. Calgary has just over 30,000 licenses listed over a wide range of dates.

My criteria:

• Alive
• Does not identify as white (i.e. Caucasian/European) and male
• Is either an active atheist/skeptic/humanist or their work demonstrates a commitment to human rights and secular values
• Was born in, lived in, or presently lives in British Columbia

Feel free to add your own in the comments. Names are alphabetical by last name. Not all of the below are officially atheist/humanist but they do show a commitment to secular values.

If you see your name below and would rather not be on this list, please email me.

Joyce Arthur

Executive director of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. Feminist and humanist.

Donna F. Barker

Addictions counsellor and presenter at Skepticamp Vancouver.

Lindsay Beyerstein

Investigative journalist, blogger, and photographer based in Brooklyn, originally from Vancouver.

Susan (Suzie) Beyerstein

Skeptic living in Nanaimo. Won 2008 Skeptics’ Toolbox In the Trenches Award.

Sandhu Binning

Retired UBC Punjabi professor, secular and rationalist South Asian. Frequent debater of Sikhs on Punjabi TV. Author of Atheist Verses. Read more.

Kim Campbell

Former Prime Minister of Canada, as Justice Minister introduced “no means no” and rape shield laws. Now works to promote democracy and women’s rights around the world. Lapsed Anglican.

Amanda Catching

Aboriginal Science Coordinator at UBC. Part of Vancouver’s skeptics community.

Crystal Catudal

Digital marketing and graphic designer, past president of the BC Humanist Association.

Jenna Capyk

Past contributor to Radio Freethinker with a background in life and neuro-sciences.

Raffi Cavoukian

Egyptian-born Canadian children’s singer-songwriter. Promotes children’s rights and environmentalism from Victoria.

Carrie Chapman

Laboratory demonstrator and skeptical activist at Langara University.

Patricia Churchland

Canadian-American philosopher, born in Oliver, BC and attended UBC. Attended Beyond Belief in 2006, 2007, and 2008.

Leah Costello

Founder of the Bon Mot Book Club and former Director of Events for the Fraser Institute. Event host and community activist. Atheist.

Ian Cromwell

Former Freethought Blogs contributor on the intersection of race and religion and health economist.

Libby Davies

Member of Parliament for Vancouver East since 1997, co-founder of the Downtown Eastside Residents Association and past Vancouver City Councillor.

Nicole Deagan

Co-founder and host of F Word feminist radio show on Vancouver Co-Op radio, co-founder of Vancouver Feminist Action Project.

Ujjal Dosanjh

Former Premier of BC 2000-2001 and Member of Parliament for Vancouver South 2004-2011. Frequently speaks out against Sikh extremism.

Hedy Fry

Member of Parliament for Vancouver Centre since 1993, originally from Trinidad and Tobago. A former physician, Fry was Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Status of Women and is currently the Liberal Critic for Health. A lapsed Catholic.

Nina George

Founder of Mountain Sky Soaps and director of Centre for Inquiry West Kootenays.

Lisa Gemino

Self-described geek, martial arts expert and writer. Repeat guest on Caustic Soda podcast and part of Vancouver’s skeptic community.

Jarrah Hodge

Feminist writer and blogger. Founder and editor of Gender-Focus and Trekkie Feminist. Humanist.

Annette Horton

Psychiatrist and past president of the BC Humanists.

Sue Hughson

Veterinary doctor and feminist. Vice-president of the BC Humanists.

Lynn Hunter

Former Member of Parliament and current advocate for Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada. A practicing Unitarian in Victoria.

Gabrielle Jackson

Research assistant in Archaeology at SFU. Past executive of SFU Skeptics.

Kathy Leavens

Chartered financial assistant and past treasurer for the BC Humanists.

Sarah McLachlan

Canadian singer-songwriter, founded Lilith Fair, supports AIDS, animal welfare, and women’s charities. Agnostic or pantheist living in Vancouver.

Wanda Morris

Executive Director of Dying with Dignity Canada. Unitarian.

Armin Navabi

Iranian-Canadian atheist living in Vancouver. Founder of Atheist Republic Facebook Page (with over 750,000 likes) and website.

Blythe Nilson

Associate Professor of Biology at UBC Okanagan and Advisory Fellow for Centre for Inquiry Canada.

Ara Norenzayan

UBC social psychologist concerned with the religious mindset. Raised in Lebanon.

Katrina Pacey

Lawyer with focus on labour and human rights. Litigation director for Pivot Legal Society and counselled sex workers in a constitutional challenge to Canada’s prostitution laws.

Chloe Packer

Former contributor to Radio Freethinker.

Kate Pullinger

Novelist and author, born in Cranbrook BC living in London. Won 2009 Governor General’s Award for The Mistress of Nothing. Atheist.

Shiraz Ramji

Poet and figure of SFU – as a student, staff, researcher, and guest lecturer. Born in Tanzania and an advocate of pacifism and human rights.

Rosie Redfield

UBC Zoologist and science blogger. Refuted NASA’s arsenic-life claim.

Natalie Reed

Former blogger with Freethought Blogs, covers trans-feminist issues.

Zena Ryder

Assistant branch leader with CFI Okanangan. Studied philosophy. Founder of their Kids for Inquiry series.

Jinny Sims

Indo-Canadian Member of Parliament for Newton-North Delta and secular Sikh.

Sharon Manson Singer

SFU Professor with School of Public Policy. Establishing BC Population Prospertity Network and co-founder of EvidenceNetwork.ca.

Gurpreet Singh

Indo-Canadian broadcaster and journalist. Frequently promotes Tarksheel and other rationalist voices in English and Punjabi media.

David Suzuki

Famed Canadian science populariser, environmentalist, and survivor of Japanese interment camps (despite being third-generation Canadian). Atheist.

Jessica Tracy

Associate Professor of Psychology at UBC. Work focuses on emotion and self-esteem. Spoke for the BCHA on her work “Death and science: The existential underpinnings of belief in intelligent design and discomfort with evolution.”

Anne Trudel

Head of Environment Health & Safety at TRIUMF – UBC’s particle accelerator – with a background in subatomic particle physics. Spoke for Cafe Scientifique.

Stephanie Van Dyk

UBC math and computer science undergraduate student and president of UBC Freethinkers 2012-13.

Nienke van Houten

Lecturer at SFU’s Faculty of Health Science and speaker and attendee for CFI Vancouver and Vancouver’s skeptic community.

Susan Vickers

Cafe Scientifique Vancouver host and inorganic materials chemistry PhD candidate.

Harsha Walia

A South Asian activist and writer with a focus on anti-racism, immigrant justice, Indigenous solidarity, feminism, and anti-imperialism. Works with No One is Illegal and other secular and human rights organizations.

Marilee Welch

Long-time volunteer and present interim Executive Director of Centre for Inquiry Vancouver.

Lorrie Williams

New Westminster City Councillor since 2002 and long-time member of the BCHA. Founded the Canadian Harambee Education Society which sponsors education for girls in East Africa. A BC marriage commissioner.

Mary Lynn Young

Associate Professor of Journalism at UBC. Founder of FeministMediaProject.com and frequent commentator on media and policy issues.

Additions (5 August 2013)

Bif Naked

Musician, born in India, raised multi-religious in Manitoba. Breast cancer survivor living in Vancouver.

Andrea Reimer

Vancouver city councillor and atheist.

Heather Deal

Vancouver city councillor and biologist.

Elizabeth Ball

Vancouver city councillor, opposed purchase of Vancouver Centre for Performing Arts by conservative church.

Jane Sterk

Leader of the Green Party of BC, spiritual but not religious.

Desiree Schell

Host of Edmonton’s Skeptically Speaking, union organizer, former Vancouver resident, and all around awesome human being.

Others

Additionally, half of the present BCHA Board of Directors are women and many of our members and the various women of the Vancouver skeptic community (Jules, Julia, Mel, Danielle, Chantelle, Lara, etc.) also deserve to be on this list. Also check out the Tarksheel Cultural Society of Canada, which promotes Rationalism in the Punjabi and Indian communities. And of course my wife.

There’s countless others I could probably include in this list but wasn’t entirely sure of whether they would consider themselves secularists (despite commitments to human rights). This includes people such as most of the women in UBC’s Faculty of Law (such as Dean Mary Anne Bobinski, multicultural expert L. Michelle LeBaron, Chair in Feminist Legal Studies Susan B. Boyd, Margot Young, or Mary Liston); the women of UBC and SFU’s Department of Physics and Faculties of Science; any number of female nonprofit executives (like YWCA Vancouver’s Janet Austin, Options for Sexual Health’s Jennifer Breakspear, the Portland Hotel Society’s Liz Evans, or Vancity’s Tamara Vrooman); local philanthropists (like Alison Lawton); the various feminist scholars and activists in Vancouver (like Veronica Fynn); or numerous other BC politicians (like Adriane Carr, Carole James, Dawn Black, Dianne Watts, or Suzanne Anton).

Feel free to add others below, I will update this page as appropriate. There’s no shortage of voices in Canada’s least religious, most diverse, and arguably most activist province.

The Checkup is a long-time Canadian radio talk show, designed to spark dialogue across the country.

To arrange my thoughts for the discussion, I sat down for a Google+ Hangout with Mavaddat and discussed some of the issues that might come up. You can watch the discussion below the fold.

In the video, I referenced Murphy’s article about Hitchens and Dawkins, “Bluster masquerading as reason.”

I also discussed briefly Professor Edward Slingerland’s Vancouver Institute talk from this evening, “Do we really live in a secular age?” I ended up not making it to this lecture, so I don’t have the answer for you. I will try to make next week’s lecture from Marci McDonald, author of The Armageddon Factor.

I hope to do more of these discussions, since they’re fascinating and a good, quick way to flesh out ideas. Let me know if you’re interested and we can schedule a time.

I look forward to your feedback.

TO: Ian Bushfield—B.C. Humanist Association

DATE: November 17–2012

FROM: Leonard R.,
Abbotsford, B.C.

SUBJECT: Article in Abbotsford Times — Nov. 8–2012

The article states you have protested to the Minister of Education of B.C. about the free distribution of Bibles to Grade 5 students at various schools in B.C. Your inaccuracy and intentional mischaracterization clearly reveals your intent at mischief, deceit and treachery.

1. You accuse; religion is creeping into the schools. How, in your puny mind, do you arrive at that? The Bibles are given to the students outside of the school, after class time, only to those students whose parents have given written permission for them to receive one. You are being devious and accusatory without substance. Quite a stretch of a wicked imagination.
2. Then you say “abstinence” is being taught in schools and somehow you link that to religion. Only a warped mind would concoct such a bridge. No science can refute the fact that there is no better way to avoid teenage pregnancy than abstinence. Disprove that, my uninformed friend. It causes me to question if you endorse the lecherous designs of those who would victimize impressionable young girls, lest they start to believe in abstinence and therefore would be less likely to permit themselves being impregnated. Just asking. .ca
You claim the “motivation” is religious.
Your letter to the Minister of Education of B.C. is serious communistic “motivation” to rob Canadians of faith of the freedom of free speech and replace it with your idea of mind-control, right?

Your interference in freedom of religion is vile, reprehensible, dangerous and a serious threat to traditional values. Traditional values are beneficial to everyone, yet you seek to destroy them. Shame on your destructive activities in this direction.
Obviously you prefer the society of the former Soviet Union or perhaps that of Saudi Arabia. If so, go and live there and that would be to the benefit of the rest of Canadians.

Leonard R.

It’s a common trope that atheists and Humanists don’t give as much (or frequently) as the religious. Lacking formal structures and congregations, there’s less of a culture of philanthropy, both in terms of regular tithes or even to secular charities.

However, these trends are changing.

The Foundation Beyond Belief is working with freethought groups across North America to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Light the Night Walk. As of this morning they have raised nearly $305,000 toward their goal of $500,000 – which will be matched by the Stiefel Foundation for a total gift of $1 million to fight blood cancer.

Here in Vancouver, the BC Humanist Association’s team has raised over $3,500 between our 15 team members (comprised of BCHA, Vancouver Skeptics, and UBC Freethinkers members).

Our walk is this Saturday, so if you can spare a few dollars, why not chip into my campaign. Remember that every dollar you donate is being matched and Canadian donations over $25 are eligible for a tax-receipt.

Every gift, big and small, is appreciated and helps highlight the compassion and charity we all have.