a policy adviser for the canadian secularalliance and volunteer at the cfi. he has a degree in mathematics (computer science)with a minor in drama and speech communication from the university of waterloo and an mbafor science and technology from queen's university. he writes about secularism, religon, politics,ethics, free speech, and more at opinionsquestions.blogspot.ca. leslie, take it away. and thanks to my fellow panelists with somegreat presentations. i wanted to start with asking just a verygeneral question of "what is secularism?" and i have a fairly short answer althoughit can be a rich topic in and of itself. as a political principle, the canadian secularalliance defines it as government neutrality
in matters of religion. in other words, governmentshould neither support nor suppress religious expression among its citizenry. as you might expect from a policy advisorto the canadian secular alliance, i agree wholeheartedly with this contention. todayi will talk about the importance of secularism, highlight a specific canadian policy that in my opinion (and in the opinion of the canadian secular alliance) should be discontinued, and then broaden my focus to encompass a much wider view of theworld. in the next fifteen minutes, i will discuss canadian law, international effortsthat would impact all of us, and finally i hope to convince you that secularism is anecessary, but nowhere near sufficient, principle for a just and stable society.
to start with, let's openly acknowledge that,overall, canada does very well on the secular front, and furthermore, is generally movingin the right direction. from in recent decades removing restrictions on interfaith andinterracial marriage to liberalising divorce laws; from the establishment of the charterof rights and freedoms as the constitution of canada, thereby enshrining freedom of conscience among other things,to formally recognizing gay marriage as equal in all respects to heterosexual unions; overtime, we are moving more and more to a society informed by secular values. and i think wi need to re recognize this, and furthermore celebrate it. this is a good time to be living here. but we must also acknowledge that we do notyet live in a truly secular society. but in most cases, the exceptions, though still substantial,are rooted in tradition. such is the case
with prayers opening proceedings at municipal councils; which is still common practice across the country that veronica spoke of earlier. the discriminatory publicly funded schoolsystems in ontario are grounded in obsolete clauses in the province's constitution as garry did an excellent job of highlighting. we must always remember that while freedom of speech is a fundamental human right, as justin said, freedom from offense is not. another historical artifact, albeit one withsignificant consequences for canadian society, has to do with our charity law. according to thecanada revenue agency, an organization must pursue at least one of the following fourgoals in order to be designated a charity: one: the relief of povertytwo: the advancement of education three: other purposes to benefit the community that courts deem charitable; or
four: the advancement of religionthe first three items on the list are in accordance with a general understanding of the term "charitableactivities". whether and how the last criterion benefits society is far from clear. a bit of history: in 1891, the british houseof lords ruled on what constitutes a charity in a dispute between the tax authorities andthe moravian church. they developed a common law test, based on the preamble of the 1601statute of charitable uses (also known as the statute of elizabeth). this ruling isthe basis for the canadian government's determination of which organizations are deemed to be charitablein nature. perhaps it is time for canada to reconsider whether a decision made in thenineteenth century in another country, itself based on the introduction
of a law more than four hundred years old,is the best foundation for taxation practises in 2012. yet we must acknowledge some traditions die hard. in a letter received by the canadian secular alliance on july 27, 2012, jim flaherty, federal minister of finance, stated, and this is a direct quotation, "charitable status for the advancement of religion is based on the presumption that religion provides people with a moral and ethical framework for livingand plays an important role in building social capital and social cohesion." end quote. i, for one, would challenge that presumption.in my experience, there is a high correlation between deeply held religious belief on theone hand and opposing the rights of women,
the rights of homosexuals, the right to freespeech, and the right of freedom of conscience on the other. furthermore, this phenomenonis not limited to canada - i submit that strong religious sentiment can have a significantdetrimental effect on any society, as recent decades in ireland, india and israel demonstrate,to pick among countries starting with a single letter. (it is important however to note,that the faithful do not have a monopoly on misogynist and censorious views that leadto social strife.) one of many causes. but we are not talking about here in canada is not just a fine philosophicaldistinctions or abstract positions with little practical impact on canadian society. mr.flaherty's unchallenged assumption significantly distorts fiscal policy today in canada.
the canadian secular alliance obtained fromthe canada revenue agency a detailed list of charitable tax deductions made in 2007.now, all charities must declare what percentage of their efforts are dedicated to the four categories of recognized charitable activities. according to their submissions to the canadian revenueagency, over 26,000 canadian registered charities did nothing beyond promoting the advancementof religion. this is nearly one-third of all charitable organizations in canada! not oneof them declared that they spent any time, effort, or money feeding the hungry, clothingthe naked, or educating the illiterate. in total, they received nearly 14 billion dollars in donations in 2007, andthe canadian government granted them tax credits of nearly 1.2 billion dollars.
that is over one billion dollars every yearof government subsidies for religious proselytising. that is roughly thirty dollars for every canadian citizen. now, either these funds are completely wasted, or they are having a significant impact on canadian society - perhaps not its improvement. in either case, might these fundsbe redirected to serve more productive goals? clearly, despite the progress canada has made,secularists still have work to do to apply secular principles to canadian governance,and to ensure canadians do not lose the freedoms we currently enjoy that stem from secularpolicies. but we cannot for a moment believe that ourefforts should stop at our borders. let us move from canadian regulations to the realmof international law, and attempts to codify
freedom from offense as a global norm. as justin mentioned, the organization of islamic cooperation has been agitating in the international community forover a decade to ban speech offensive to muslims and other religious groups. of course, the question as was hinted at the question period a few moments ago, is not whether there should ever be restrictions on expression. no country provides for completely unlimitedfree speech. even the united states, with its famous first amendment, has several significantlimitations on expression - the canonical example being that it is illegal to falselyyell "fire!" in a crowded movie theatre (from supreme court justice about a century ago, oliver wendell holmes.) most people support the placing limits on unfettered speech. some widely accepted examples include limited and well-craftedlaws regarding slander and libel, truth in advertising, and uttering death threats.
so, given that reasonable limits exist on speech,the question is: do mocking religious figures or making other blasphemous utterances falloutside the bounds of acceptable expression? no. the attempts of the oic to classify satireas hate speech, and related efforts, have impacts on canadians just as much as argumentswithin our own parliament. we cannot be blind to them, and we must act. similarly, secularism itself is not a defaultposition even in democratic nations. though it has not been used in decades, canada stillhas a blasphemy law on the books, punishable by up to two years imprisonment. in 2009,ireland passed a law that makes "publication
or utterance of blasphemous matter" an offensesubject to a maximum fine of รข‚¬25,000. the arab spring is replacing several autocraticregimes with democratically elected but illiberal and/or islamist governments. there are many and complexfactors behind the fact that dictators were generally more secular than their electedreplacements - but the point is if we truly respect freedom of conscience as a fundamentalhuman right, there is much work to be done in the world. certainly one's ire should be raised whenreligious dogma is upheld in the face of contrary evidence, or when governmental policy is usedto buttress the faithful of one creed at the expense of those belonging to other groups. including those with no belief in the supernatural.
but religion is far from the only exampleof ideology trumping facts. and many of the most pressing issues facing our world todayhave nothing to do with religious zealotry or a violation of secular principles. though some religious folk may welcome therapture and thus dismiss climate change, humans are cooking the planet with our ever-increasingemissions of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, almost entirely for secularreasons: an all too familiar litany of fear, economics, political expediency, and humanshort-sightedness. the 2008 financial meltdown in the united states, that quickly spread globally, had everything to do with greed and fraud. wall street made huge profits not by increasing efficiencies,but by maximizing economies of externalities.
a greater commitment to secular principles,if possible, would have done nothing to avert or reduce the impact of the real estate andfinancial crash. the economic crises facing the eu and soonjapan have nothing to do with undue religious influence in the halls of political power. our current agriculture and animal husbandrypractices are almost perfectly designed to evolve a superbug that could wipe out a significant portion of humanity. and this is being done for entirely for the most secular of reasons. since the first human evolved, plant and animalspecies have been going extinct at an unprecedented rate.
we have polluted huge swathes of the earth'sland and water to such an extent that significant areas our planet's surface are inhospitableto any form of life. little (if any) of this damage was done withreligious motivations at its core. none was committed violating any purely secular principle. so although secularism is important - andmore than that, i believe it to be essential - it is also not enough. not nearly enough,not by a long shot. most of the key crises we face today as a species, as a global society,have nothing or at most little to do with religion. secular governance is nowhere nearenough to produce peaceful, stable, sustainable societies.
we should not waver for a moment in our commitmentto secular governance. but we should also not forget for a second that there is muchelse that needs our attention as well. we must resist all dogmas, whether they bereligious, economic, political, philosophical or even scientific. all areas of human endeavourare open to scrutiny, question, and refinement. furthermore, no single approach works acrossall domains. science would fail miserably if its findingswere subject to a majority vote. peer review would be a horribly inefficientway to run a corporation. unregulated capitalism has proven to be adismal failure if environmental protection and sustainability is a desired outcome.
yet in their appropriate domains nothing wehave tried as a species to date has surpassed democracy, free markets, and peer review. consider this: maybe there is something betterthat we simply haven't tried yet. at a minimum, we need to be open to the possibility, orelse this - what we see today, here, now - is as good as it gets. even more than that, as good asit can get. and i, for one, emphatically do
not believe that to be true. let our legacy be that we bequeath upon ourcollective descendants a better, more just, more sustainable world than the one we inheritedfrom our ancestors. thank you.
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