Religious groups fear for freedom
Grant seen as forcing position on abortion
MISSISSAUGA, ONT. • On a wintry Tuesday afternoon, in a small conference room at the back of a Pentecostal office building in the Toronto suburbs, 60 people representing Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Christian and other faiths spent two hours debating whether the government is violating their religious freedoms — and if so, what to do about it.
The concern arises out of the Canada Summer Jobs program, which this year comes with a box that all applicants must check off before submitting. The wording, which many say they find confusing, seems to require a declaration that the applicant does not advocate an anti-abortion position.
A growing number of faith- based groups see the application as a threat to religious freedom. While some are staunchly pro-life, others don’t take a firm stance on abortion but don’t want to be forced to take a side to apply for a grant.
Tuesday’s discussion was closed to the media, but a few of the attendees spoke to reporters afterward.
Ibrahim Hindy, an imam at the Dar Al-Tawheed Islamic Centre in Mississauga, said his mosque is struggling over what to do.
“I came to take it all in and hear the concerns that people were having,” he said. “We were going to apply this year, and we’re still discussing whether or not we will … Some people are asking, does this conflict with our beliefs? If the person has an orthodox understanding of scriptures, is this asking the person to contradict those?”
Father Niaz Toma, a Chaldean Catholic priest, said his community of Iraqi Christians won’t be able to apply for the grant, and referred to the attestation on the application as a “persecution” of his people.
The meeting, which was spearheaded by Conservative MP Alex Nuttall, featured a panel of speakers from Islamic, Catholic and evangelical organizations outlining their interpretation of the attestation, taking questions from the crowd and moderating a discussion of what should be done.
Nuttall — the Tory critic on the youth portfolio — said those in attendance included representatives from Baptist churches, Hindu temples, Sikh temples, Coptic Christians, the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, and many others.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Employment Minister Patty Hajdu have both made it clear the aim is to block federal grants from going to organizations that have the explicit purpose of anti-abortion political activism. They have encouraged faith- based organizations to still apply for the grants.