Canada’s Preeminence in Religious Freedom
The historic embrace of religious freedom is important to reflect upon at a time of increasing global religious persecution. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reported in a 2010 study that 75-percent of the human family lived in countries that either 1) had high government religious restrictions, or 2) experienced high social hostility toward religion. This figure was up from 70-percent just three years earlier.
Early Roman Catholic Rights
A seminal event in the propagation of Canada’s religious tolerance occurred when the right of the citizens of Quebec to practice their Roman Catholic faith was affirmed in the Treaty of Paris. The treaty, which marked the end of the Seven Years War between France and Britain, asserted in paragraph IV that,
“His Britannick Majesty, on his side, agrees to grant the liberty of the Catholick religion to the inhabitants of Canada: he will, in consequence, give the most precise and most effectual orders, that his new Roman Catholic subjects may profess the worship of their religion according to the rites of the Romish church, as far as the laws of Great Britain permit.”
In the late 1700s, it received an influx of religious groups from a perhaps unexpected place — the American Colonies to the south. Ironically, although many came to the New World to escape religious persecution, many religious groups had Loyalist leanings as America’s Revolutionary War commenced. Many of these groups then migrated to north.
Religion really took hold as the Enlightenment unfolded into the early 19th Century. As the country’s populace expanded and diversified, its tolerance of diverse religious viewpoints typically expanded as well.
Lords Day Act
However, there was rigorous debate regarding religious viewpoints that revolved around the Lord’s Day Act of 1906. The Act prohibited certain business activities on Sundays. This drew opposition from religious groups that did not accord the same religious significance to Sundays as Christians did.
In 1961, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Lords Day Act. However, in 1985, The Supreme Court, in a landmark case involving a drug store in Calgary (R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd), declared the law unconstitutional.
A Precipitating Event
There are assertions that some of the impetus for the creation of Canada’s new Office For Religious Freedom stemmed from the death of Shahbazz Bhatti in March of 2011. Bhatti, a Catholic, served as Pakistan’s minister of minorities. In that capacity, he visited Canada and met with Prime Minister Harper. Just three weeks later, he was killed by Islamic extremists.
In remembering Bhatti, Harper recalled that “he and I discussed the threats faced by religious minorities and the need for our country to do more.” The prime minster also stated that Bhatti was both a humble and an honorable man that had worked without ceasing to defend the most vulnerable, whether they were Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, or members of other religious minorities.
A New Office
In February of 2013, the country established its new office within the nation’s Department of Foreign Affairs. In so doing, it became only the second nation worldwide to establish such an office. The United States established a similar agency in the late 1990s.
This new Office has already taken an important step by establishing the “Religious Freedom Fund.” Interestingly, this fund, within certain parameters, will actually finance projects outside of its borders. It will seek to fund projects around the world that will help religious communities facing religious intolerance and/or persecution.
The establishment of such a fund may be seen as both a continuation of country’s proud heritage of religious tolerance, and a more proactive effort to assail intolerance even beyond its borders.
