To his credit, Eric Thomas, President of Humanist Canada thanked me for my comments and promised to circulate them with the Board. My hope was that Humanist Canada would engage with my critique and together we could work toward a stronger and more constructive statement. I have belonged to Humanist Canada in the past (I mostly don’t right now as I’m living in the UK) and, while Twitter is a glib medium, did hope my public criticisms would prompt action.

I knew at the time that sharing it publicly was a risk. It’s often better to respond privately in these situations but given this was the only statement I was aware of from a secular or atheist group (I later saw Secular Connexion Séculaire’s letter), I wanted in part to start a larger discussion about the issue in the atheist community in Canada. Given Eric’s initial offer, I was cautiously optimistic.

Now, Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson, a board member of Humanist Canada and author of the response, has doubled down on the statement in a comment on Canadian Atheist. Since I do care about the future of Humanism in Canada, I want to make the proper case now of why that statement and accompanying press release failed and how I believe it could have been a statement that put Humanist values in action.

Despite Lloyd’s assertion, I’m not “antipathetic” to Humanist Canada as an organization. My Tweets were born out of an incredible disappointment and frustration at what could have been something truly progressive, forward-thinking, and constructive. Instead, the leaders of freethought in Canada took the opportunity to simply bash religion, playing into the tired narrative that we have nothing more to add to the national dialogue.

This blog post is divided into several sections below. The first is my main point. Beyond that are nitpicks and specific disagreements and a dissection of the press release that went alongside Humanist Canada’s response. I’ve also restrained myself to avoid profanity as much as possible throughout this blog, as apparently it might come off as vulgar.

My core argument: Humanist Canada’s response was a missed opportunity

My biggest issue with Hstatement is that it was completely silent on the importance of reconciliation. It reads, on the whole to me, as a glossing over the core motivation for the report and like it was an opportunistic attack on religion. One of the most common and frustrating criticisms of Humanism is that it’s a purely negative and anti-religious.

I firmly believe Humanism has much more to offer than that. In the words of the Humanist Manifesto III: “Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.” There’s the eloquent seven point definition of the Amsterdam Declaration. Even Humanist Canada’s own Humanism 101 page says:

Humanism is a philosophy or life-stance based upon a profound respect for human dignity and the conviction that human beings are ultimately accountable to themselves and to society for their actions. It is a deity-free worldview that affirms our ability to lead ethical and meaningful lives without reliance upon a belief in the supernatural. Humanists are guided by reason and scientific inquiry, inspired by music and art, and motivated by ethics, compassion and fairness.

While each of these is clear that Humanists don’t believe in the supernatural, they spend far more time saying that we do believe in human dignity and in our ability to make the world a better place through reason and compassion.

Humanist Canada’s Statement betrays those pretexts and instead focuses mainly on using the Commission’s Report as a chance to take a snap at religion. I base this on the press release, which should arguably highlight the organization’s key messages (but I’ll dissect it thoroughly later). Those points, from my reading are:

• Humanist Canada “has endorsed the broad scope” of the report.
• A call on the Government “to sign the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples.” [sic]
• That the Commission “paid insufficient attention to the culpability of Canada’s churches.”
• That “spiritual violence” is a problematic term because it could lead to censorship of free speech.
• “All forms of religious indoctrination of children are a form of child abuse.”

The first is a platitude, the second rhetoric, and the remainder is spent bashing religion or the commission for not bashing religion more. I’ll respond to some of these in more detail later.

In my opinion, a meaningful Humanist response would involve actually internalizing the report, creating organizational actions that take some ownership of the issue, and suggest ways individual Humanists can work toward reconciliation. The point of the report was that there has been a systematic attempt to destroy a culture by successive Canadian Governments. The Commission goes as far as to term this cultural genocide.

This is based on five full years of top-level research, interviews, and investigations across the country. While I respect that Lloyd has firsthand experience with some of these issues, as Humanists we clearly need to distinguish between these anecdotal experiences and the systematic and arguably scientific approach that went into writing this report. While that doesn’t exempt the report from criticism, it should give pause and reflection when drafting a response. At very least, it should merit a conflict of interest statement if your statement might be coloured by the experiences of the author.

But let’s get back to the term cultural genocide because that should be a big obvious flag that these issues go far beyond religion or the actions of the churches. While the churches absolutely need to be held responsible, and Humanists certainly have a role to play in calling them out, it was a racist culture across the entirety of Canadian society that perpetuated the residential school system. A racism that continues to exist to this day.

Among other ways, the report provided evidence for this with quotes from Canada’s first Prime Minister, John A MacDonald, politicians through the 1920s, and the 1969 White Paper conceived by Liberal Prime Ministers Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Jean Chretien (then Minister of Indian Affairs). Each of these, the report concludes, demonstrate an attempt to destroy or integrate aboriginal culture into the White Christian majority culture of Canada.

In case it’s not clear: every Canadian – including Humanists – was complicit in this system.

If Humanist Canada at the time stood up for the freedom and dignity of Canada’s First Nations, this would have been a chance to highlight that. If Humanist Canada was silent, this is the time to admit that we were wrong. In either case, it would then have to follow with how Humanist Canada plans to work toward reconciliation. You can’t endorse the report while ignoring the extremely clear calls to action.

As a bare minimum demonstration that Humanist Canada understood this, I suggested the statement ought to have highlighted some of the recommendations reflected in the core principles of Humanism (for example, the call to repeal the spanking law).

But beyond that, what’s desperately missing from Humanist Canada’s statement and is the biggest missed opportunity here, is any commitment to do anything following the report. Instead of being a leader on one of the main human rights issues in Canada at the moment, Humanist Canada had absolutely nothing to say on what it felt Humanists ought to do in light of this report. There was no promise to review its own policies and activities. No suggestions for members to add their suggestion. No promises to reach out to Canada’s aboriginal community. There was no ambition in it to make the world a better place. And that’s why I’m angry.

To give a really tangible suggestion, as many as 31% of aboriginals in Canada say they have no religion. That’s almost seven times as many as say they practice “Traditional (Aboriginal) spirituality”. And while that doesn’t mean they are all atheists or Humanists – early research into non-religion amongst aboriginals in Australia suggests many may eschew the word religion while still maintaining spiritual beliefs – undoubtedly some would share our values and would be eager to work with an organization promoting human dignity and secular values.

At the very least this presents an incredible opportunity for dialogue around what it means to be non-religious in contemporary Canada. We should be building bridges, starting discussions, and learning about these issues. In particular, there’s potentially much we can from the aboriginal perspective before we force our own ideas and campaigns on them.

For me this report generates so many important and interesting questions and I really wish it had done the same for the current leadership of Humanist Canada. These are questions that could lead to a larger, more diverse movement (something I hope Humanist Canada cares about). For example (these are really just illustrative):

• How do aboriginals view Canada’s non-religious communities?
• What can we as Humanists and secularists do to promote reconciliation?
• How many members of Humanist Canada are aboriginal? Why aren’t there more? What are their priorities?
• What do non-religious aboriginals believe in?
• What barriers do atheists and the non-religious face on reserves?
• How do aboriginal beliefs inform modern secular aboriginal people?

Finally, it’s a missed opportunity because it fails to engage with where Canadians are on this issue. Angus Reid’s poll, released last week, on Canadian’s reaction to the report shows strong support for the report – with younger Canadians most optimistic about the report bringing a better situation to Canada’s aboriginal peoples.

That’s not to say Humanist Canada ought to just follow the polls. We do have a place in challenging majority opinions, but that needs to come first from demonstrating an actual understanding of the issue and making the case why the majority is wrong.

Lloyd claims in his comment that “Instead of simply parroting the ‘me too’ line of some political parties, we added to it.” But I see no evidence from that statement that Humanist Canada actually grasped the issues at play before jumping in to say religion should have been bashed more.

A strong and constructive response could have shown how Humanist values of tolerance, compassion, and open secularism are not just relevant in this conversation but are those that could potentially offer the optimistic future that younger Canadians believe is possible.

In no particular order below are my more specific responses to Lloyd, the Humanist Canada statement and their abysmal press release. I don’t plan on spending any more of my time arguing about this statement. I’m not alone in these criticisms and I hope by now you can see why we find this position problematic. Nevertheless, I maintain my offer to help build a constructive response.

Spiritual Violence

“We are concerned that this term could be used to cut off reasonable discussion which is a clear infringement of free speech and personal evolution,” Lloyd said in the press release. The release claims the term spiritual violence “was defined as demeaning a person’s religious traditions.”

But just because someone uses the word spiritual doesn’t mean atheists should automatically throw up their arms in protest.

Despite Lloyd’s claim, the report is explicitly clear both about what definition of spiritual violence it was using and in when it’s something to be condemned. In the context of the report, spiritual violence is very clearly about an active government policy to destroy a culture. For example, the second paragraph of the report defines cultural genocide and identifies what would constitute spiritual violence: “Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated and destroyed.”

If that’s not enough, they straight up define what the they mean on page 276. Perhaps Lloyd missed the rest of this because the statement says it’s defined on page 272.

Spiritual violence occurs when:

• a person is not permitted to follow her or his preferred spiritual or religious tradition;
• a different spiritual or religious path or practice is forced on a person;
• a person’s spiritual or religious tradition, beliefs, or practices are demeaned or belittled; or
• a person is made to feel shame for practising his or her traditional or family beliefs.

There is plenty of evidence to support our conclusion that spiritual violence was common in residential schools

There are four separate definitions there and it’s clearly not about restricting anyone’s freedom to criticize religion. The entire report is about the abuse of aboriginal peoples by the state. It’s about the government having a policy to tell people they’re wrong, what you can and can’t believe, and often trying to – sometimes literally – beat and torture your beliefs out of you. Take this section, which makes it clear (p 282, emphasis added):

To have a right that you are afraid to exercise is to have no right at all. The Declaration asserts that governments (and other parties) now have an obligation to assist Indigenous communities to restore their own spiritual belief systems and faith practices, where these have been damaged or subjected to spiritual violence through past laws, policies, and practices. No one should be told who is, or how to worship, their Creator. That is an individual choice and, for Indigenous peoples, it is also a collective right. However, First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people need to be assured that they do indeed have the freedom to choose and that their choice will be respected.

In his comment Lloyd says that “To ignore inconvenient facts in support of a political narrative, especially when accompanied by rants to silence dissent, is a definition of totalitarianism.” I’m sorry Lloyd, but the stuff I said wasn’t totalitarian, it was critical of Humanist Canada. This stuff, about government policy to destroy cultures, that’s totalitarian.

Instead of supporting the right to freedom of religion for aboriginal peoples and for secularism (ie the government not telling you what to believe), this is “The one commission recommendation [Humanist Canada has] questioned.”

That recommendation, number 60, calls on church leaders to be sensitive to this historic abuse to prevent it from happening again (particularly related to attempts to destroy their culture). That sounds sensible to me. Anyone going into schools in a position of authority ought to have some modicum of understanding of their students, particularly if there are generations of abuse from people in positions of authority.

On signing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Humanist Canada’s press release and statement “Call on the Government to sign the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples [sic].” But as I pointed out in my Storify, you literally can’t sign it after the vote. That’s just not how it works.

Yes, the Harper Government has dragged its heels at every opportunity and continues to delay meaningful action. The Huffington Post article Lloyd linked to, discussing Canada’s objections raised at a 2014 meeting to the language used in a small number of clauses is a red herring. It’s literally not a document we can sign.

The report recommends:

43. We call upon federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments to fully adopt and implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as the framework for reconciliation.

44. We call upon the Government of Canada to develop a national action plan, strategies, and other concrete measures to achieve the goals of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Read it again and compare it with what Humanist Canada says.

They are clearly different calls. The Commission talks about adopting and implementing the Declaration. If the Government could sign the Declaration, they would have made it recommendation number 1 (or at least one of them).

If that recommendation – that Canada should adopt and implement the Declaration as a framework for reconciliation – is what you meant, you should have said that. Language matters in these situations. At best you look naïve when you release an official statement asking for things that cannot happen. It’s a good way to destroy the credibility of your organization and – why I’m extra incensed – of our movement.

Lloyd says “Curiously, Mr. Bushfield approvingly posted a letter from Secular Connexion Séculaire” citing the SCS document I put in my Storify. What Lloyd missed was where I said, “though [SCS] still mistakenly calls on Canada to sign UNDRIP when we already have.” So I really can’t see what’s confusing Lloyd unless he hasn’t actually read what I wrote.

I completely agree that the Government shouldn’t have voted against the Declaration in the first place and the continued objections are embarrassing to our country, but we still can’t sign it.

On “good experiences” in residential schools

In his response on Canadian Atheist, Lloyd says I tweeted “that the HC document ‘reads like a Catholic apologist.’” The good thing about the internet is that I can show you exactly what I said:

This is the worst from @Humanist_Canada. It reads like a Catholic apologist http://t.co/CihZ1Ipsd1 #TRC pic.twitter.com/lQfrJcAnIi

— Ian Bushfield (@ibushfield) July 2, 2015

Maybe Lloyd’s not familiar with Twitter but basically there’s a 140 character limit which means complex thoughts and ideas have to be summarized in very short form. This is why (as you can see) I took a screen-cap to quote one specific sentence from the statement:

We are disappointed that the Truth and Reconciliation Committee failed to report on aboriginal people who had good residential school experiences as reconciliation cannot be achieved without balanced reporting.

And I compared that specific section with a Catholic apologist arguing that we need to talk about the people who had good experiences in residential schools.

To go from my Tweet, which even within Twitter’s limits I think still gets across the point I wanted, so saying I dismissed the entire statement as Catholic apologetics is worse than anything Lloyd accuses me of.

But let’s look at what Lloyd, speaking as Humanist Canada, actually says in that line. And let’s set aside the weasel words of “balanced reporting” which are more often used by conservative media outlets to give space for climate change denialists or to some puffed-up theologian in a piece about atheists.

The reason this line was “the worst” is because it obscures what the point of the entire report was. I pointed this out in my very next Tweet and in the article I linked to in my Storify.

Surely there were some nice schools & people involved but it misses the point that the system was designed to deny dignity: a Humanist value

— Ian Bushfield (@ibushfield) July 2, 2015

If, as Lloyd says, he has “also worked with clients who viewed residential schools as ‘safe havens’ from abuse suffered in their families of origin,” then the answer, the Humanist answer, is surely not to simply change who the abuser is. It must be to challenge human rights abuses wherever they occur. That some people saw residential schools as not better but less bad than their home-life is surely another sign of our continued failure as a country to protect indigenous peoples?

So Lloyd quote-mined a Tweet to argue that I didn’t read his statement. And I’m the one who’s being “disingenuous.”

My “most disingenuous suggestion”

Lloyd says “Probably Mr. Bushfield’s most disingenuous suggestion is that HC is opposed to those recommendations not directly mentioned in our two page response paper.”

The only problem is I never said that.

I said, as I’ve repeated in thorough detail above, that Humanist Canada missed an opportunity by not mentioning any of the recommendations or reconciliation. But that’s not even in the same universe as accusing Humanist Canada of being opposed to any of them. I wrote about what an actually meaningful response would look like. There were a whole bunch of recommendations in there, but all Humanist Canada had to say was it “endorsed the broad scope” of the report.

And that doesn’t mean a Sagan-damned thing.

Having made up what I said, Lloyd continues, “He uses this ruse to falsely accuse HC of supporting the spanking of children.”

Go back and read my Storify. Again I never said any of that.

On spanking, I asked rhetorically, “Surely Humanist Canada isn’t pro-smacking children?” I clearly didn’t do this to imply that Humanist Canada endorses spanking. Read the context of what I said.

I was arguing that Humanist Canada should have used the statement as an opportunity to show common ground with the recommendations and Humanist values. Spanking is something I assume most Humanists oppose (based on the evidence and morality), so I clearly didn’t “use this ruse to falsely accuse HC” of anything.

The press release

Before I address the press release itself, I want to establish my credentials. I’ve spent much of the past 8 years campaigning, in voluntary and professional capacities, for secularism and science. In that time, I’ve written and helped write countless media releases which have landed front page newspaper coverage as well as radio and TV interviews. Some of my early work was undoubtedly helped by the novelty of atheism, my more recent and focused work has been on the strategic thinking on building and framing of a story so as to make the greatest impact possible.

As campaigning has become my profession, and this blog has already run way too long, I’m not going to break down everything that’s wrong (from a public point of view) with Humanist Canada’s release. I’m not going to do their work for them for free. But here’s a quick run-through of why I consider it to be amateurish and damaging to the credibility not just of Humanist Canada but potentially of the broader Humanist movement.

This release went out three weeks after the report. There is almost no point in putting out a press release that late. No one’s going to care because it’s not news.

The first line actually needs to say something newsworthy. That Humanist Canada is a “a National, Secular, Non Profit and registered Charitable Educational Organization” is not. It is redundant (all charities are registered non-profits in Canada) and grammatically incorrect (none of those words should be capitalized). That stuff all belongs in a footnote with a description of what Humanist Canada is.

There’s no story in this release. Pick two, maybe three main points at most and centre a narrative around that. Imagine you’re writing the newspaper article for them. Walk them through the story.

Too many ideas are crammed into each paragraph. Just make them nice, clear and short (even just a couple sentences each). Give the quotes their own space.

Link directly to the statement. This was an electronic press release, sent over the internet. You don’t need to say “find this thing here” you can link directly to it or even add it as an attachment.

Give an email address for contact. It’s 2015, most of the journalists that follow up with me send an email.

Don’t pay for it! This was released on MarketWired, a professional wire service. I don’t know for a fact that Humanist Canada paid for this release but I do know that there are free wire services. Nevertheless, in my experience it’s generally far more effective to send a release (by email) directly to news desks and journalists. Like other non-religious charities, Humanist Canada is funded almost entirely by donations, so it’s just wasting donor’s money. A better use of funds would be to pay someone professionally to do your communications, who might have foreseen many of these criticisms.

Also, Peoples in “United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples” should be capitalized.

Update 16 July 2015:

I’ve made some minor copy edits to the post and cleaned up the later sections. None of my arguments have changed substantively.

I want to add that in my Storify, and for as much as possible here, I directed my critiques at Humanist Canada’s statement, albeit sometimes in the tongue-in-cheek format of social media. I did this on my own, independent of any organizations. Lloyd, however, repeatedly and blatantly misrepresented my arguments and resorted to personal attacks. And Lloyd speaks as “the board member who prepared the draft position adopted by HC.” Even if his comments aren’t endorsed by Humanist Canada, this is the only communication I’ve received from them (albeit indirectly) since they promised to review my notes.

While I will continue to be an active supporter of the Humanist movement in Canada, I’m incredibly disappointed by the behaviour of “Canada’s national voice for humanism” and its current leadership.

More than three years ago, I wrote a post on Canadian Atheist about prayer in Peterborough municipal council meetings.  In the comments you suggested I contact CFI Canada. I did and CFI connected me with Dan Mayo and Secular Ontario. Thank you for that advice. My case against the City of Peterborough for saying the Lord’s Prayer at the beginning of its council meetings has been successfully resolved in my favour.

The case was on hold while the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on whether opening meetings with a prayer was constitutional in a different city. That decision, in April, effectively banned city councils across Canada from opening their meetings with a sectarian prayer. Peterborough was one of the many cities to end the practice at the time and this week the council voted to make the change permanent. Instead, the council will open its meetings with the chair saying:

The Council for the City of Peterborough recognizes the principles contained in our Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that enshrine rights and freedoms for all. We also acknowledge that our Constitution provides that Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law.

The phrasing is still a bit of a sop to the religious (but only because the Charter contains that same phrasing).

Overall it’s great news to Veronica, who has campaigned for over three years for this change. While the Canadian Atheist piece is missing, I first wrote about it on 31st May 2012.

Good work.

Reading the ruling, I think secularists should feel confident. Here’s my interpretation of my 10 favourite parts of the ruling (in the order they appear).

1. Canadian society supports a secular state, according to the Supreme Court.

The state’s duty of religious neutrality results from an evolving interpretation of freedom of conscience and religion. The evolution of Canadian society has given rise to a concept of this neutrality according to which the state must not interfere in religion and beliefs.

The Supreme Court interprets the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in light of wider society. The highest judges in Canada recognised that Canadians are a generally secular lot and do not want the government interfering with religion.

2. Government must be neutral with respect to religion

The state must instead remain neutral in this regard, which means that it must neither favour nor hinder any particular belief, and the same holds true for non-belief… The state’s duty to protect every person’s freedom of conscience and religion means that it may not use its powers in such a way as to promote the participation of certain believers or non-believers in public life to the detriment of others.

Canada does not have an official separation of church and state like the USA. This ruling makes it crystal clear though that Canada is a secular country. The government should neither support nor oppose any religion or belief.

3. Atheism is afforded equal protection as religion

Following from the same quotes, belief and non-belief, believers and non-believers, are mentioned in the same passages. This shows that the right not to believe is afforded equal protection under the Charter.

4. Secularism promotes a multicultural Canada

The pursuit of the ideal of a free and democratic society requires the state to encourage everyone to participate freely in public life regardless of their beliefs. A neutral public space free from coercion, pressure and judgment on the part of public authorities in matters of spirituality is intended to protect every person’s freedom and dignity, and it helps preserve and promote the multicultural nature of Canadian society.

5. History and tradition are invalid arguments for maintaining religious privilege

If the state adheres to a form of religious expression under the guise of cultural or historical reality or heritage, it breaches its duty of neutrality.

When I argued that the University of Alberta should remove god from its convocation charge, tradition was the most common argument that it should be maintained. Similarly the Parti Quebecois in introducing its Secular Charter argued that the cross in the National Assembly should be maintained due to cultural history. Nevertheless, the Court is again unambiguously clear: Tradition and heritage is no excuse to maintain religious privilege.

6. Religiously-motivated laws are invalid

A provision of a statute, of regulations or of a by-law will be inoperative if its purpose is religious and therefore cannot be reconciled with the state’s duty of neutrality.

7.Discrimination against atheists is non-trivial

The prayer recited by the municipal council in breach of the state’s duty of neutrality resulted in a distinction, exclusion and preference based on religion — that is, based on S’s sincere atheism — which, in combination with the circumstances in which the prayer was recited, turned the meetings into a preferential space for people with theistic beliefs. The latter could participate in municipal democracy in an environment favourable to the expression of their beliefs. Although non-believers could also participate, the price for doing so was isolation, exclusion and stigmatization.

The adoption of the phrase “isolation, exclusion and stigmatization” is powerful here. School prayer, which is still legal in Alberta public schools, similarly risk isolating, excluding and stigmatizing students who choose not to participate.

8. Ending religious privilege does not promote atheism

Barring the municipal council from reciting the prayer would not amount to giving atheism and agnosticism prevalence over religious beliefs. There is a distinction between unbelief and true neutrality. True neutrality presupposes abstention, but it does not amount to a stand favouring one view over another.

There is a clear difference between secularism and atheism and it’s well described here. The state should be neutral, full stop.

9. Even “inclusive” prayers may exclude atheists

Even if [a council prayer] is said to be inclusive, it may nevertheless exclude non-believers.

Many proponents of public prayers opt for a non-denominational version in an effort to be more inclusive. But even these, which aren’t necessarily sectarian, can discriminate against atheists.

10. The Charter’s preamble does not mean that Canada is a theistic country

the reference to the supremacy of God in the preamble to the Canadian Charter cannot lead to an interpretation of freedom of conscience and religion that authorizes the state to consciously profess a theistic faith. The preamble articulates the political theory on which the Charter’s protections are based.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms begins with a phrase that “Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God”. The inclusion of this phrase was arguably a sop to the religious right and is used to argue Canada is a Christian country. This ruling destroys that argument and potentially nullifies the use of the preamble in Court.

There’s no ‘God’ in graduation

Originally published in The Gateway, 16th September 2008

Upon the gruelling end of a 4-5-6 or even 7 year journey, students embark across a stage for the chance to experience their high school graduation on steroids. This event is known as convocation, and despite the movement toward inclusiveness and tolerance, this is one stage that keeps the flame of intolerance burning bright.

When new graduates cross the stage at their convocation, they are presented with a charge by the University’s Chancellor. He issues an Admission where he states: “I charge you to use them [the powers, rights, and privileges of University degrees] for the glory of God.” It is commonly understood that big-G God here is some variant of the monotheistic Abrahamic God (or the one Jews, Christians and Muslims live in fear of).

A recent Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey suggests that around 36% of Canadians under 25 do not believe in a god. This means that when the Chancellor issues his charge, he is denying the existence of students who disagree with the idea of living in fear of a deity. He also offends the sense of the majority who believe that a public institution should have no stance on religious issues. This is the idea of separation of church and state, or secularism, that founded the United States, but is exemplified by Canada’s modern governments.

Upon hearing about this issue from several of its members, the University of Alberta Atheists and Agnostics drafted a letter which was sent to the President’s Office on July 14. Hope for a quick move to inclusiveness was dashed when nearly a month later we received a brief response stating their office had heard of the issue earlier and decided against doing anything. We were disappointed to hear that this University wishes to remain in its dark-aged roots, however, seeing as we received no reason for their decision not to change the charge, we requested the minutes from the meeting where they decided this. Continuing to drag its feet, the President’s Office has decided this is an issue that requires a FOIPP request.

Now, almost two month’s after the UAAA made a request to make our convocation more tolerant of the diversity of all students, we still don’t have an official reason why the President’s Office won’t respect our wishes. We also have over a hundred signatures of students who are outraged by this break in secular values and the separation of church and state. Finally, we have a Facebook group for people to get more information about this issue. We have had tremendous support not just from atheists and humanists but from students, alumni, and faculty of diverse backgrounds, including people who deeply believe in God but who support the separation of Church and state and recognize that this is a public, not private, university.

This push is also not without precedence. The University of Calgary’s admission is to grant degrees to those who have "earned" them and give them the "rights and privileges, powers and responsibilities pertaining to those degrees."  The University of Toronto secularized its convocation several years ago as well. Cleary the U of A can look to be as progressive as the U of T and U of C.

Many will assume this is a frivolous attempt to push militant atheism. However, we are not requesting the charge to say "use your glory to disprove god and vilify religion", we just want to feel welcome in a ceremony we have all equally earned. Further, members of our group do not wish to define "god" in some way that it makes them happy as some would suggest. We do not arbitrarily interpret words differently to get through the day. Interpreting an F on your transcript as "Fantastic" doesn’t make it so. The University’s charge comes from the charge from Oxford University, which has a clearly Christian foundation.

It shouldn’t be unreasonable for a group of students who pay upwards of $25,000 to get a degree to ask to be included in a celebration of their achievements. The President’s disregard for our wishes is abhorrent and intolerant.  We stand united for a secular convocation at the University of Alberta.

By the end of the school year, we’d managed to win a concession from the university and the convocation charge was changed.

To my mind, no humanist group in Canada has ever hosted a similar event, but the first major difference here was how, in their opening speeches, nearly every candidate identified as either being a member of the BHA or an atheist. This was especially surprising for some as all major parties, including the Tories and UKIP, were in attendance.

I live tweeted the event, so you can find my reactions under #HHEP14. I thought I’d just post some additional thoughts here.

First, the strongest speaker was, by far, UKIP candidate Tony Brown. Faced with a largely antagonistic audience, Brown made his best case to connect with the audience, discussing his upbringing in an “atheist family” and noting his admiration for Richard Dawkins. He repeatedly tried to draw a link between the EU, and particularly the large European People’s Party (representing numerous Christian Democrat parties), and the Catholic Church. It was a fairly novel argument and could appeal to a nationalistic secularist. Nevertheless, his line that “I’m not a climate change denier, the climate has always been changing” and subsequent denial of man-made climate change was met with heckles.

The other stand-out speaker was Caroline Allen of the Green Party. Her smartest line was to admit that the Green’s science policy had been pretty weak in the past but that they’ve done a lot of work on it and people should give it another look (I will, the link is here). Unfortunately, she lost some credit on this front (in my mind) by maintaining the party line against fracking and GMOs.

Otherwise, the Liberal Democrat, Matt J McLaren, and Tory, Caroline Attfield, both sounded a bit nervous, although McLaren caught his stride near the end and made a strong argument about secularism as a core Lib-Dem value. Attfield, meanwhile, went off policy on a couple points, suggesting that Europe could play a bigger role on security issues (she clarified that she meant foreign policy when probed) and that the role of the Church of England is shrinking.

Dr Louise Irvine of the National Health Action Party made a spirited defense of the NHS and represented her single issue party well. On other issues, she sided between Labour and the Lib Dems (ironically also where she was seated).

Finally, Mary Honeyball, representing Labour and the only sitting MEP at the debate, gave a decent defense of her party, but I got the sense after that she didn’t really inspire anyone. Whether she was aiming to play it safe or not, I think there was a missed opportunity by Honeyball.

My question, prefaced with a thanks to the parties that voted for recent clinical trial regulations (#AllTrials), was on how the candidates would involve evidence in their decision making in the future. Each gave a relatively predictable answer (evidence is widely seen as a good thing), with Dr Irvine mentioning the value of publishing all clinical trials and Brown admitting that the UKIP vote against the regulation was about keeping the policy within the UK, rather than being personally against the idea.

I realised later I should have asked if the candidates would publicly change their mind if evidence proved them wrong. When I asked this to Brown after, he pointed out that Nigel Farage has repeatedly done just that, in particular, noting where his party has been far off.

After the event, I went for a couple drinks and finally managed to meet Andrew Copson, the BHA’s Chief Executive, who very expertly chaired the evening.

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.

I encourage you to download and read the entire 244 page report online and support your local IHEU Affiliate.

I thought though, given my current country of residence, that I’d focus on the United Kingdom’s status, which coincidentally to Canada is Systemic Discrimination.

While it’s quite easy to live your life as an atheist in Britain – up to two-thirds the country may be non-religious – the report focuses on laws and state institutions, which the UK does quite poorly on. Specifically, they list the following issues that are a bit more extensive than those in Canada.

• There is an established church or state religion
• Systematic religious privilege
• Discriminatory prominence given to religious bodies, traditions or leaders
• State-funding of religious schools
• Religious schools have powers to discriminate in admissions or employment
• Religious groups control some public or social services
• Official symbolic deference to religion
• State-funded schools offer religious instruction without secular alternatives but it is optional

Bold points are the “Systemic Discrimination” tests while the other two are merely “Mostly Satisfactory”

It’s very similar to the issues facing Canada – religiously privileged school systems – plus the existence of the Church of England/Scotland as state churches and the seats reserved for Bishops in the House of Lords.

What’s particularly troubling is that after years of meddling by the government of England and Wales, the education system is in such a mess that further “reforms” are being pushed by the Coalition government to bring in more Free Schools – most of which are run by religious organizations. Whereas a few years ago most schools were either state of Church of England run, an increasing number are being run by different religious groups, including Muslims, Evangelical Christians, and Orthodox Jews.

Scotland is the brighter point, where the fewest state-funded schools are religious (still 14%) and they are not permitted to discriminate on the basis of religion. Perhaps Scottish independence wouldn’t be such a bad direction?

The report also notes that schools in England and Wales are required to hold daily prayers. I’m not certain that this law is followed closely but, as in Canada, it likely means that rural and more conservative areas are able to enact greater pressure on those who don’t conform with the dominant religion.

Additionally, a concern is raised about government funding for the Church Conservation Trust charity. This organization works to preserve historical churches across the country. Most of those churches are still property of the Church of England but at the very least are made accessible to the broader public and as a secular charity, the CCT allows any group (even the Sunday Assembly!) to rent their spaces.

A note about libel reform – which was championed after the British Chiropractic Association’s vindictive lawsuit against science writer Simon Singh – concludes the report. While the situation has improved with the new laws, Northern Ireland still lags the rest of the UK and maintains onerous requirements for defenders of free speech.

Two cases are highlighted to conclude the report. The first notes that a Christian charity receiving public funding was discriminating against non-Christian employees and that similar organizations are likely permitted within the law to do the same. The second discusses an atheist who was threaten with arrest for an anti-religious sign in his window.

Overall most countries don’t fare very well on the report. Of the roughly 200 nations in the UN, only 15 receive a grade of “Free and Equal”: Belgium, Kosovo, the Netherlands, Fiji (tentatively based on its new constitution), Kiribati, Nauru, São Tomé and Príncipe, Benin (with broader concerns about human rights), Niger, Sierra Leone, Jamaica, Uruguay, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Many of the “atheistic” Northern European nations fail for perpetuating state religions or for keeping blasphemy laws on the books.

It’s also worth noting that a survey that covers the entire world is bound to have limits. Many local conditions are impossible to document by a lone, underfunded NGO. In some cases this will mean missed discrimination (the Canadian section is missing a few examples) and in others, they may have overestimated the effect of unused laws that remain on the books.

Nevertheless, it’s a valuable report and hopefully it inspires other secular groups to produce similar documents and to act in favour of secular human rights.

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.

Supposedly the Parti Quebecois will now include a provision to remove the crucifix that has been hanging in the National Assembly since 1936 and “a previous exemption for lawmakers will also be struck from the charter, which would presumably make it against the law for Muslim, Sikh and Jewish politicians to sit in the legislature while sporting clothing and symbols important to their faith.”

One month ago, I wrote about the proposed charter, criticizing its hypocrisy for singling out some religious symbols while enshrining Catholic privilege. I also decried the antagonistic approach of the Quebec government, stating: “If you have to pass laws banning religious iconography, you’re doing secularism wrong.”

I stand by those words today.

It’s promising to see the government recognize the criticisms it received over the 1936 Crucifix but the insistence on uniformly banning religious symbols, now including elected representatives, is unconscionable. Our political representatives should be that – representative. The culture of Quebec is no longer homogenous, white, male, and quasi-secular Catholic.

Presumably candidates for Quebec’s National Assembly will be campaigning while wearing whatever religious attire they believe they are compelled to wear. If the citizens of their riding then choose to elect that person to office, why should they be forced to then remove it?

Clothing has no rational ability to affect one’s ability to draft laws.

We should enact no limits to the free practice of religion where:

• it has no impact on one’s ability to do their job,
• they are able to offer services without discrimination,
• it harm no one else,
• or it will not be viewed as state endorsement.

Debates over clothing are generally little more than attempts to dictate what is acceptable within your existing culture. As Muslim feminist Shelina Zahra Janmohamed writes, “stop fighting over what I wear, and start addressing who I am. I am neither burqa nor bikini. I am woman.”

Meanwhile, the small leftist-separatist Quebec Solidaire (with two seats) is proposing an amendment to the Charter to promote both secularism and reasonable accommodation. I’m not sure if this is the best answer (I haven’t read their bill yet), but it’s definitely a better approach then the attempt to blanket ban religious symbols of minority faiths. Unfortunately, the PQ is unlikely to listen to these arguments and will likely push forward with its hardline Charter with support from the right-leaning Coalition Avenir Quebec.

The debate will continue and ultimately this Charter, in the extreme PQ format, will land it in the Supreme Court of Canada. I see little chance of the clothing bans standing against the protected freedom of religion based on precedents protecting reasonable religious accommodations.

The separatists will then get to fight their favourite battle against the rest of Canada as they decide whether to enact the notwithstanding clause to preserve their Charter.

At the very least, at least this revised Charter will remove some religious privilege in Quebec, although it will be obscured by the battle over what minorities are allowed to wear to work.