44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 10, 2022 10:00AM
- May/10/22 1:05:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with the hon. member. As I said, for me, this is more about the cultural heritage of our country than a prayer to any one god.
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- May/10/22 1:06:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, today I have the opportunity to speak to an opposition motion regarding the text of the religious prayer we say before starting our business in the House.
I must admit that I was surprised when I received the text of this motion last night. As other members of the House have said before me, there are many problems in the world, such as the war in Ukraine, the importance of fighting and addressing climate change, and the importance of ensuring that our social programs meet Canadians' needs.
My hon. colleague from Drummond has put forward a motion that I do not think addresses a very important problem today.
I had the opportunity to review the text, and let me start by saying it also gave me the opportunity to look at the history of our daily prayer. If nothing else, the motion has allowed me to look at some of the history of this place, and again, kudos to the House of Commons team that helps provide some of the history. I thanked them for their work on electoral boundaries and, when we were having a conversation on Bill C-14, the extensive history of the House in this place. I will also give a tip of the cap to them in terms of their history and understanding of how the daily prayer has come to pass.
It is important for the House and for the Hansard to reflect the fact that this is a practice that was started in 1877. This is something that parliamentarians decided was important at the time, and pardon me but I think that tradition in this place carries a lot of importance. Yes, we have to look at ways we can modernize and meet the realities of today. We will undoubtedly have a conversation about the nature of virtual Parliament, the ability for parliamentarians not just to do their work here, physically, in this place, but indeed to use some of those tools virtually, to make it more modern and perhaps even more friendly for our colleagues, particularly for under-represented groups in the House.
It is important to note that the prayer has evolved over time. It has not stayed static since 1877. It is something that has constantly evolved when parliamentarians have had the opportunity to make it better reflect the variety of religions that we worship and respect here in this country, and that is extremely important. The member for Nepean touched upon that just before me, about that particular dynamic.
At the end of the day, the House of Commons has to balance those members in the House who might have religious beliefs and those who may not believe in a particular god or follow a particular religion. When I had the time to reflect about how we conduct ourselves in the House, my thoughts were as follows. When we actually look at the text in question, as I mentioned it has been amended over time through the PROC committee to try to reflect the broad range of religious diversity, but it is also relatively short.
The speakership therefore has about 30 seconds to say the prayer in the House. That is very little time. After that, we have a moment of silence and reflection.
I feel that doing it that way in this place, we can recognize people with certain religious values, while also showing respect for those who would rather think in a non-religious way.
The text of the motion talks about diversity and inclusion. The way the House of Commons works right now is that we have a short prayer for those who might have religious beliefs, and then we have a moment of reflection for all members, such that they are able to reflect and perhaps give strength to whatever might drive them in their daily pursuits. By getting rid of it, I do not think we are giving that same respect for those who might actually hold religious beliefs.
Let me add this. I do not want to seem discomforting or saying that this is the only fashion in which we can work, but if someone is really disrupted by the fact that we have a 30-second daily prayer, perhaps they could step outside of the House and not be part of it for the short 30 seconds it takes, then reconvene and stand here for the minute in which we all reflect in silence, such that they do not have to be part of the prayer. I think that right now there is a healthy balance between the two.
Let me also say that I started my speech speaking in French intentionally, because I dare say there are very few Quebeckers, indeed very few Canadians, whose top priority is the prayer right now. With respect to my colleague from Drummond, who brought this forward, which it is well within his right to do, this is an entire day that we are going to spend on this subject, when there are very pressing, important problems of the day and opportunities that we as parliamentarians should be working collectively to encourage the government to pursue. We are going to be spending time, as I am doing right now, trying to find 10 minutes to rationalize some type of argument on something that I think is quite frivolous.
Let me also say that this is not the place for this debate.
My hon. colleague has the opportunity to present this idea and change to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, which is responsible for the parliamentary work essentially involving review the actions of the House.
Why is my hon. colleague not presenting his motion to the committee?
Why is it that we are having this debate here, when that could already happen at PROC if it was the will of a majority on the committee to move forward with a particular study? I know there is already a lot of good work that goes on to talk about the issues of the day and how we can improve aspects of this place.
I am going to wrap up with this. We have the war in Ukraine; we have climate change; we have affordability for Canadians, and we have a whole host of issues on the heels of a pandemic. Indeed, we are not completely through the pandemic. I am a little disappointed, I will use that word, that the member for Drummond chose this forum to move this forward. I recognize that it is his parliamentary privilege and that the Bloc Québécois has chosen this forum to bring this forward, but I think that most Canadians, indeed most Quebeckers, if they are watching this, are scratching their heads and asking why this is a good use of parliamentary time. I think most would come to the conclusion that it is not a great use of parliamentary time; it is not the best method; it is not the place where this should be introduced and, unfortunately, we have lost time to discuss and debate other issues that are prevalent to Canadians and more pressing. I will leave it at that.
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- May/10/22 1:17:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. I would like to thank my colleague for his intervention and thank my colleague for Nepean who spoke before him, as well.
While I agree with him that this should have been brought up at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, I do have a question. When this is eventually debated at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, would he support, for instance, the integration of other faiths, a multitude of faiths, in the opening prayer? Does he have any ideas on that?
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- May/10/22 1:17:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I mentioned in my remarks, I had the chance to look over the history of how the daily prayer became what it is today. Since it was introduced in 1877, there have been modifications over time to reflect the fact that Canada and its makeup, in terms of demographics and faith backgrounds, have changed. There has been consideration given to that.
If we feel that now is an important time to look at the text and to make sure we are reflecting a full scope of the different faiths that are recognized and worshipped here in Canada, then I absolutely think this is an opportunity to do so. I remain quite resolute, in that I think the prayer should stay. We can also have a moment of reflection, so that we recognize those who are both theist and atheist.
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- May/10/22 1:18:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have been here for 11 years and I am probably the least familiar with the prayer. As a non-religious person, I believe I have only been in the House twice for that prayer: One time was after the shootings of 2014, to show unity, and the other time was actually by accident.
I will be voting to eliminate the prayer, but I think the member made an interesting argument. Because opposition day motions are for the opposition to raise failings of the government, which failings of the government would he prefer to be discussing today: the failures on climate change, or the failure to introduce a disability benefit?
Which failings would he rather be talking about today?
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- May/10/22 1:19:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a bit of a sinister question, of course.
We are trying to actually improve decorum in debate in this place and, with all due respect to my hon. colleague, that was a very facetious question. Let me get to the point that he made, which is that he will be supporting this opposition motion, but in 11 years, he has only ever stood in this place twice to hear the daily prayer.
It seems to me as though the ability to respect religious freedoms has not been a major inconvenience to him, and that he understands some colleagues who, as he mentioned, he has joined in solidarity.
Perhaps he could continue to stay outside of the House for the 30 seconds that the daily prayer does happen and join for a moment of silent reflection.
This is such a non-issue, I cannot believe I am standing here in the House even talking about it.
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- May/10/22 1:30:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, basically, what my colleague is saying is as crazy as asking why democracy and collective deliberation are important. It makes as much sense as that.
The primary principle in modern democracies is the neutrality of the state. What message does it send when this House, an institution that is supposed to be above all other institutions, says a prayer before it begins its proceedings? That sends a very bad message.
If my colleague is unable to chew gum and walk at the same time, he has a serious problem, and maybe he is in the wrong place.
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- May/10/22 1:31:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a little perplexing that the Bloc sees this as a priority at a time like this. As someone who is Christian and was the chair of the National Prayer Breakfast for four years, I have deep respect for prayers in Canada, prayers in the House and the freedom to pray.
The freedom of religion has been recognized in our charter. The first line in the charter says:
Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law
It is indeed the foundation of our society. This is a practice that was started in 1877 and later codified in the 1920s.
Of all the things we are dealing with in Canada, freedom of religion and freedom of expression are sacrosanct. Why would the member choose to take steps to eliminate that for this place?
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- May/10/22 1:44:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I would like to ask him two questions.
First, I am curious to know whether the Bloc Québécois is seeking to import the debate on Quebec's Bill 21 into the House to discuss secularism.
Second, I believe that the current method, namely a prayer followed by a moment of silence, is equally appropriate for both people with religious values and those without. Why is my colleague against the current method?
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- May/10/22 1:46:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the individual does not feel welcome here because of a 30-second prayer, yet freedoms that take away other freedoms are not freedoms for anyone. To me and my constituents, I have to say it is offensive that the Bloc members do not enter into the House until after the national anthem, O Canada, is sung, because they openly indicate that their purpose is to separate from Canada. They openly and freely do not pledge allegiance to Canada, yet I, and clearly all the members of this place, respect that reality. This is their choice.
They have a choice of whether to attend to a 30-second prayer that all kinds of individuals in the House, whom I meet with and who are of different faiths, value. I believe that in this case everyone has a beliefs system, including the member who just spoke. That always impacts our decision-making, and we should have the freedom to continue to exercise this opportunity within the House. In the same way Bloc members have the freedom not to come into the House before O Canada, they can certainly do the same in regard to this prayer.
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- May/10/22 3:56:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is on this rare occasion that I agree with the member across the way from the Liberal Party. I am baffled that the Bloc would bring forward a motion to remove prayer from this chamber.
Being the former chair of the National Prayer Breakfast, I understand the value of prayer. It means a lot to a lot of Canadians, to millions of us across Canada, yet the Bloc has brought forward a very divisive motion in the House. I would add that the House is already non-partisan in terms of faiths. It recognizes faiths in the prayer and also recognizes persons who do not support a faith.
Why would members of the Bloc seek to remove this key aspect of freedom of religion from this place?
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- May/10/22 3:57:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this goes to what I was saying during my speech, which is that not only has the prayer been part of our Standing Orders for a very long time, but it is very generic in nature. It can represent all faiths, depending on how it is interpreted. It is very generic in its terms, and that is good because it represents and respects all faiths.
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- May/10/22 3:57:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, earlier in his speech, the member for Kingston and the Islands said there were a number of topics that the Bloc Québécois might have brought forward on an opposition day. I would certainly agree with the member for Kingston and the Islands that there are many ways in which the government has failed and is failing Canadians that would rightly be the subject of an opposition day motion.
I think of the Liberals' so-called climate plan, which is really based on a prayer. That is where a prayer should not be. We should have a much more concrete action plan with a far better hope of success.
I wonder if perhaps the member wants to speak to some of the ways the government has been failing Canada that might have been the proper object of an opposition day motion.
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- May/10/22 3:59:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, tomorrow we will be voting on either accepting the status quo or moving to a moment of reflection. When it comes to the goal of inclusivity, though, there are other options, like, for example, allowing members, on each day of the week, to offer a prayer from their own faith tradition.
I wonder if the member would reflect on whether this would increase inclusivity in this place.
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- May/10/22 4:14:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague across the way for his impassioned speech.
Faith is something important, there is no doubt about it. However, we believe that it is something personal. It is important not to confuse the way people like the Uighurs and Rohingyas are treated with what we are proposing here, which is that the prayer no longer be recited in the House because, simply put, it offends non-believers and those who believe in another god or in another religion.
Can my colleague across the way even admit that a moment of reflection is sufficient to replace the prayer?
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- May/10/22 4:15:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question.
I will say that a moment of prayer is something that I look forward to when I come into the House. If members of Parliament wish to have a moment of reflection, they may choose to do so. I have never had a friend who was an atheist come to me and complain about such an issue here in the House or anywhere, so that is my answer on that front.
With reference to the treatment of minorities abroad, I was answering the question from the member from New Brunswick on how we must stand up for all religious rights around the world, for whatever group or entity is being persecuted by whichever totalitarian government that may be.
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- May/10/22 4:22:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was saying that when people ask what my impressions were when I came to the House of Commons, I tell them that one of the things that surprised me the most is that there is a prayer every morning. I will not hide the fact that my constituents were surprised. This is not a personal attack on someone because they are religious. This is about the fact that the state and the church are bound together for all to see, and this enduring religious element that is cemented in our primary democratic institution is simply reinforcing that.
I would also say that when I hear my colleagues, particularly those from English Canada, say that people are not interested in this issue, I feel that perhaps they do not truly understand the reality in Quebec. Indeed, the Quiet Revolution demonstrates that our history was significantly marked by this particular desire to ensure that the government and religion are no longer bound together, as they were during Quebec's dark ages. Perhaps that is not a tangible reality for our colleagues. To me, that demonstrates that our reality is somewhat misunderstood.
We were also told earlier that it might not be relevant to debate the substance of our motion. Why devote one of our two opposition days to removing prayer from the House?
What I have surmised from these questions we are being asked is that no one has explained to us why they want to keep or not keep prayer in the House. We are also being lectured by a party that only yesterday used a gag order to force us to quickly discuss a bill that is over 500 pages long. So when we hear about good or poor management of the House's time, I think that, given the circumstances, we should hardly be lectured.
We have also been told that, for our opposition day, we could have talked about seniors, health care or the environment. I just want to point out that we already had an opposition day about seniors. We also had an opposition day on health transfers. As for the environment, we recently inundated the government with questions about Bay du Nord. We introduced a bill to manage climate change and the role of the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, a bill that the government voted against and that the NDP ripped apart in committee.
Basically, they are telling us to talk about important things but that they will ignore us anyway. They are telling us to talk to the hand. The government says we should manage our time wisely even though it does not really matter because it will not listen to us anyway. The message they are sending, and this is such shame, is that they could not care less about 300 years of study of Enlightenment thinking about things like secularism and the separation of church and state. They think none of that is important. Why are we spending an opposition day on this subject? Even though this is an issue that the greatest philosophers debated for years, they are dismissing it as irrelevant and certainly not a priority.
I think it is important to deal with this issue on an opposition day, considering that it is a proposal that we have already tried to have adopted in another way, particularly through a motion by my colleague, the hon. member for Manicouagan. Her motion, which required unanimous consent, was not adopted. It would indeed have been much simpler to take a different approach, as Nova Scotia did recently with proposals from both the government and the official opposition before unanimous consent was finally obtained. That is obviously something that will not happen here. It is therefore appropriate to have this debate.
Our goal today is to ensure that we finish the job of separating church and state with a view to being inclusive. I commend the work of my colleagues, who have been very positive and very thoughtful in their approach to the motion. They pointed out, for example, that leading the prayer every day can be a hindrance to someone who would like to occupy the position you hold today, Madam Speaker, but who is of a faith other than the Christian faith.
It is worth asking how inclusive it is to have a Christian and Catholic daily prayer, considering we may one day like to have a Sikh, Muslim or Jewish Speaker occupying the chair and leading the prayer.
The Bloc Québécois believes that the best way for the government to ensure religious neutrality is not to introduce every possible form of belief into these institutions. The best way is to keep each person's religious convictions private and not to broadcast them ostentatiously in public institutions such as the House of Commons.
Those complaining that today was a wasted debate day are likely those who wasted the most time, since they did not debate the substance of the issue. Today, we could have had an intelligent debate and voted, and the matter would have been closed. Instead we were criticized for using an opposition day for this.
The surprising thing is not the topic of the Bloc Québécois motion. It is the fact that the prayer has not yet been replaced with a moment of reflection, which would be much more inclusive. The surprising thing is how reluctant our colleagues are to have this debate at all. The other thing that is surprising is that we are being criticized for having this debate here, when we are the first ones to feel the impact of this prayer. We are being criticized for having this debate when the Supreme Court took time, probably more than one day, to examine this issue with respect to a prayer at a municipal council. If members are accusing the Bloc Québécois of wasting time, then in a way, they are accusing the Supreme Court of wasting time too. I would suggest that those on the opposition benches wasted the most time today.
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- May/10/22 4:29:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened to what the member said in her intervention, and for me this is an issue we can have a discussion about. I think there is a place for that. I think that is within the procedure and House affairs committee; I do not think it needs to take up an entire day of deliberation in the House of Commons, but let us just say that I am listening and that I have heard her arguments. If I understand correctly, what the Bloc is proposing is that we should be eliminating the prayer in order to be more inclusive, because the prayer is based on faith.
Would the member then extend the same logic to saying we should be getting rid of all holidays that are based on faith, such as Christmas or Easter? Should those be eliminated too, and just be observed by those who choose to observe them? Should they no longer be statutory holidays?
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- May/10/22 4:30:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would say that the motion before us today is much more specifically about the separation of state and religion than it is about a holiday that people can celebrate as they wish at home, on a statutory holiday that we have all become accustomed to over time and that may affect people differently depending on how they decide to spend that day, which would have a much broader effect. If we were to really explore this, it would have to be done in a much broader sense, because statutory holidays affect a lot more people than just the 338 members of the House.
The separation of state and religion can hardly be more graphically illustrated than by a prayer in the very heart of what represents democracy. This is what our motion today is all about.
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- May/10/22 4:34:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am inclined to support the motion before us, although not because I have anything against the idea of prayer. In fact, I have many constituents who pray for me, and I welcome those prayers in the spirit they are intended. I am sure there is always a good intention there.
I do believe in the idea of this place being neutral when it comes matters of religion, and I believe that is very much the thrust of this motion. I come from local government, as many people in this place do. The Supreme Court ruled in 2015 on a case involving prayer at municipal council meetings, so I was somewhat surprised when I arrived here just a few years ago and found a religious prayer at the beginning of our proceedings.
We brought forward an amendment regarding a land acknowledgement at the beginning of our proceedings and the Bloc Québécois did not accept this amendment. I wonder if my colleague could indicate why that amendment was not accepted and whether she supports the concept.
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