Religious Freedom

  • A Song of Ascents: A Report from the Faith in Canada 150 Millennial Summit

    A Song of Ascents: A Report from the Faith in Canada 150 Millennial Summit

    Daniel Bezalel Richardsen

    July 7, 2017

    Convivium contributor Daniel Bezalel Richardsen reflects on the recently convened Faith in Canada 150 Millennial Summit and the hope he derived from this historic gathering. 

     “The principal moral benefit of religion is that it permits a confrontation with the age in which one lives in a perspective that transcends the age and thus puts it in proportion. This both vindicates courage and safeguards against fanaticism.” —...

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  • Re-seeing Religious Resentment

    Re-seeing Religious Resentment

    Gideon Strauss

    March 24, 2017

    Today, Gideon Strauss introduces us to his beloved Outremont through the eyes of Valérie Amiraux, author, scholar, professor, and Outremont resident. 

    “When people address religion, they address religion for what they see of religion…and what they see is people who do not behave as they would.” ~ Valérie Amiraux

    Salomé et les hommes en noir is ...

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  • Facing Quebec's Religion Problem

    Facing Quebec's Religion Problem

    Janet Epp Buckingham

    January 31, 2017

    The shock wave from the Quebec City mosque tragedy might at last jar loose public recognition of what Quebecers themselves privately know: Quebec has a religion problem. Or perhaps better, Quebec has problems with religion.

    It’s impossible at this early stage to know the cause of the horrifying murder and wounding of Muslims in a Quebec City mosque this week. We may never truly understand what spurred the shootings, which violate the deepest values of Canadians within and outs...

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  • Defending a Foundational Freedom

    Defending a Foundational Freedom

    Andrew P.W. Bennett

    January 10, 2017

    Andrew Bennett, Canada’s former Ambassador for Religious Freedom and now Cardus Senior Fellow, argues for the need to recognise the foundational nature of freedom of religion and conscience in our society and its link to our common life.  

    If we are to share a common life in Canada, freedom of religion and conscience must be foundational. It is the freedom  that enables us to live fully as we are, and as we are called to be. It bears witness to the truth that  human beings have a metaphysical...

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  • Including Us Out

    Including Us Out

    Daniel Proussalidis

    December 16, 2016

    Noting that “not all faith traditions have holidays in December, and not everyone identifies with a particular faith tradition,” Kessler suggests employers avoid even putting on “holiday” parties. Holiday, you see, implies a religious tradition – something that won’t do in our enlightened times.

    Were it not on the school’s official website (which appeared earlier this week but has since been removed, no doubt chased away by howls of laughter), you might have thought a re...

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  • Bennett to Senate: Protect Religious Freedom

    Bennett to Senate: Protect Religious Freedom

    Daniel Proussalidis

    December 13, 2016

    He joined Cardus in July of this year after the Trudeau government decided not to renew the mandate of the Office of Religious Freedom (ORF), which he headed up. And he’s doing so in a Canadian context now too.

    Well settled into his new role as a senior fellow at Cardus, Dr. Andrew Bennett continuing the mission he took on in 2013 as Canada’s first (and only) ambassador for religious freedom.

    He joined Cardus in July of this year after the Trudeau governmen...

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  • Special Edition: Universities Canada and Religious Freedom

    Special Edition: Universities Canada and Religious Freedom

    Michael Van Pelt

    September 14, 2016

    Universities Canada (UC) is a civil society institution that acts as a gatekeeper for scholarship funding, certification credibility needed for recruitment and graduates, and membership to key organizations including athletic associations.

    Senior administrators at Canadian universities will meet behind closed doors in October to debate a bylaw that could exclude faith-based institutions from membership. They will be asked by the Board of Governors of Universities Canada to pass the bylaw in e...

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  • ‘Inclusion’ to the Exclusion of Religious Freedom

    ‘Inclusion’ to the Exclusion of Religious Freedom

    Peter Stockland

    July 15, 2016

    It’s worth, though, heeding the emerging voices warning us that freedom’s loss is as much, perhaps even more, a function of shifts in language almost too subtle for timely detection. In an exclusive interview with the Catholic Register, Canada’s former Ambassador for Religious Freedom – and now most welcome new colleague at Cardus – noted that his former bailiwick has been recast by the Liberal government into a muddle called the Office of Freedom, Human Rights and Inclusion.

    We’ve become habituated to associating loss of freedom with decisive, often violent, acts.

    It’s worth, though, heeding the emerging voices warning us that freedom’s loss is as much, perhaps even more, a function of shifts in language almost too subtl...

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  • Challenging Trinity Western University: When the Law is Inconvenient

    Challenging Trinity Western University: When the Law is Inconvenient

    Albertos Polizogopoulos

    April 12, 2016

    Think about that: $10,000 per hour to argue a case which is almost identical to a case decided by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2001. The issues were the same. The questions were the same. In fact, one of the parties, Trinity Western University (“TWU”), is the same.

    I was in Halifax last week for the appeal hearing on Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society v. Trinity Western University et al. The hearing, which went from Wednesday through to Friday, included three main parties, ten interveners, five Court of Appeal j...

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  • Silent Night for Religious Intolerance

    Silent Night for Religious Intolerance

    Peter Stockland

    December 22, 2015

    The bad news was the letter concerning the persecution of about 230 million Christians worldwide faced with “daily threats of murder, beating, imprisonment, and torture.” An estimated 400 million more Christians face appalling discrimination in housing and jobs. In poised yet implacable words, these esteemed leaders of their two faiths laid out the case that even in a world awash in the blood of tormented minorities, virtually every credible human rights observer agrees Christians experience religious persecution more than any other faith group on a global scale and in absolute numbers.

    There was good news and bad news around an open letter released in...

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  • What's next for Canada's Office of Religious Freedom?

    What's next for Canada's Office of Religious Freedom?

    Robert Joustra

    November 19, 2015

    It’s moving month in Ottawa’s capital, and we already have a few clues of what’s coming and what’s going. The legacy of the Liberal Party of Canada is one that has always taken human rights very seriously. Liberal internationalism, classically, has human rights and the dignity of the human person at the centre of its global agenda.

    This article was originally published in Embassy, and is reprinted with permission.

    It’s moving month in Ottawa’s capital, and we...

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  • The Conversation: Law, Loyola and the Common Good

    The Conversation: Law, Loyola and the Common Good

    Paul Donovan with Peter Stockland

    June 1, 2015

    Earlier this year, the Supreme Court of Canada declared the government of Quebec had breached the religious freedom of Loyola High School, a private Jesuit institution in Montreal. Paul Donovan, who led the seven-year legal battle as Loyola's principal and who became its president in April, spoke with Convivium publisher Peter Stockland about the implications of the decision for Canada's faith in common life..

    CONVIVIUM: I wanted to ask you a first question from your perspective, not as the former principal and now new president of Loyola High School, but as a citizen who's just gone through a very arduous, seven-year legal process. You took on t...

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  • The State of Religious Freedom

    The State of Religious Freedom

    Albertos Polizogopoulos

    June 1, 2015

    Canada has come through a hard decade of judicial assaults on religious freedom, but Ottawa lawyer Albertos Polizogopoulos argues that four strong judgments this spring point to signs of new life for Canadian faith in common life

    Oddly enough, it began with a pill used to treat stomach ulcers. On December 9, 1986, the Federal Court of Appeal rendered its decision in Smith, Kline & French Laboratories Ltd. v. Canada (Attorney General), a case dealing with patents and int...

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  • Acquiring a Faith Literacy

    Acquiring a Faith Literacy

    Andrew P.W. Bennett

    February 25, 2015

    The following interaction between myself as Ambassador for Religious Freedom and Mrs. Lois Brown, MP for Newmarket-Aurora during my appearance before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development reflects this idea. -AB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

    For part one of this series, please see How to Counter Religion Avoidance Syndrome, published February 23.

    ...

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  • How to Counter Religion Avoidance Syndrome

    How to Counter Religion Avoidance Syndrome

    Thomas F. Farr

    February 23, 2015

    The anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks is a good reminder about the importance of advancing religious freedom around the world. Dr. Thomas Farr makes the connection himself in his compelling testimony to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons from back in 2015. We reprise his testimony in Convivium today.

    In the two months since I addressed the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Canadian House of Commons (see the text of my remarks below), the need for Canada to embrace a more active stance on religious freedom has become increasingly, and p...

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  • Christian Lawyers and Doctors Need Not Apply

    Christian Lawyers and Doctors Need Not Apply

    Albertos Polizogopoulos

    January 9, 2015

    In 2014, lawyers and doctors were targeted by their own professional associations for direct attack because of their religious beliefs. For Christian lawyers, the first salvo was fired at Trinity Western University’s law school. TWU, which exists to “develop godly Christian leaders” in a variety of marketplaces, requires its students and staff to sign a Community Covenant.

    It has become a scary time to be a Christian professional in Canada.

    In 2014, lawyers and doctors were targeted by their own professional associations for direct attack because of their religious beliefs.

    ...

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  • Life, Law, & Dignity

    Life, Law, & Dignity

    Geoffrey Trotter

    December 1, 2014

    Arguing for the sanctity of life. Will the Supreme Court listen?

    May it please the Court:

    The sanctity of human life is itself a core Charter value, which rightly informs the criminal law.

    Canadian homicide law has always prohibited people ...

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  • The First Freedom of the Human Soul

    The First Freedom of the Human Soul

    Ray Pennings

    November 4, 2014

    "I think our literacy may be fairly high ... but our understanding of religion has diminished quite a bit," says Farr. "What we've lost is the anthropology, if you will; the notion that human beings are by their nature religious." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

    At the Transatlantic Christian Council in Washington, D.C., earlier this fall, Cardus executive vice president Ray Pennings had a conversation with Thomas F. Farr, director of the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and Worl...

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  • Religious Freedom & Janus-Faced Justice

    Religious Freedom & Janus-Faced Justice

    Don Hutchinson

    August 1, 2014

    Ottawa lawyer Don Hutchinson finds the Supreme Court looking forward and backward on religious freedom cases

    On April 17, 1982, the day after my last exam in first-year law school, I pedalled my bicycle across town on a sunny Vancouver day to have breakfast at a friend's, and to watch his television as our Constitution was brought to Canada from England on a rainy...

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  • Niqab and Otherness

    Niqab and Otherness

    Natasha Bakht

    August 1, 2014

    Wearing the niqab is “other” only if non-wearers insist on making it so, argues University of Ottawa law professor Natasha Bakht

    The Western world is at an astonishing historical moment when, in the 21st century, women's clothes are the subject of legislation, judicial consideration and much public reprobation. I am referring, in particular, to the situation of Muslim women who wear ...

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  • Is There Room for the Quaker's Wife?

    Is There Room for the Quaker's Wife?

    Ray Pennings

    July 9, 2014

    "All the world is strange," said the Quaker to his wife, "except for me and thee. But even thee I wonder about." Western democracy is the offspring of a marriage of ideas between Christian social thought and the enlightenment. In different contexts, the particular features of democracy remind us more of one intellectual parent than the other, but only a conscious attempt at ahistorical forgetfulness would deny democracy's DNA.

    "All the world is strange," said the Quaker to his wife, "except for me and t...

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  • US Supreme Court rules business isn't a religion-free zone

    US Supreme Court rules business isn't a religion-free zone

    Stanley Carlson-Thies

    July 1, 2014

    The controversy is over the contraceptives mandate in the 2010 health care reform law, which requires employers' health plans to cover a wide range of contraceptive drugs and devices, including some the companies and others regard as abortifacients. Churches are exempt from the mandate; after widespread protest, religious nonprofits such as colleges and hospitals were offered an "accommodation": the insurer provides to the organization a health plan excluding objectionable contraceptives and then announces to the employees that those contraceptives will be paid for by the insurer.

    The US Supreme Court yesterday vindicated two Christian-owned companies, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods, that have a pro-life objection to including in their employee health plans certain contraceptive drugs and devices. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ...

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