Council-meeting prayers ignore high court ruling
Central Okanagan politicians were praying this week like it was April 14, 2015. That was the last day prayers were supposed to be said at city council meetings in Canada. The next day, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled prayers had no place at such gatherings.
But who cares what the Supreme Court says. Not the politicians in Kelowna, West Kelowna and Peachland, obviously, as they all took part in meetings that began with prayers.
And not just bland, vaguely spiritual prayers either. Nope, West Kelowna’s prayer was a fullon Christian prayer, both old school and New Testament in its direct references to God and Jesus Christ, and even a shout out to the Holy Ghost.
“Let’s bow our heads,” Pastor Don Richmond began at Tuesday’s city council meeting. “Our Heavenly Father, we . . . recognize and we know that wisdom comes from You.
“Oh God, help them to work as a team to prove the whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts. When they turn to the right or to the left, may they hear a small voice behind them saying, This is the way. Walk in it.
“May this mayor and council know peace and prosperity and progress as they provide leadership through these trying and difficult days. May God bless them, in Christ’s name, Amen.”
Holy smokes! You could hardly conceive a prayer that would be more counter to the Supreme Court’s ruling. Unless, of course, you’d wandered over to Kelowna and Peachland’s inaugural meetings, where prayers were also said this week.
In years past, well-known local ministers such as Rev. Tim Schroeder from Trinity Baptist and the late Rev. Albert Baldeo had offered prayers at inaugural meetings of the Kelowna city council. No Christian ministers were on the agenda Monday night; instead, Jordan Coble of the Westbank First Nation offered an “Indigenous prayer.”
In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled the saying of prayers at Canadian town and city council meetings violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“When all is said and done, the state’s duty to protect every person’s freedom of conscience and religion means it may not use its powers in such a way to promote the participation of certain believers in public life to the detriment of others,” the justices wrote in a unanimous judgment.
Last week, I asked the Kelowna city clerk’s office if having a “prayer” on the agenda didn’t directly contravene the court’s ruling. I got an email back saying having First Nations participation was a sign of the respect being shown toward Indigenous communities by the council.
Indigenous inclusion is lovely. But the agenda explicitly referred to Coble’s address as a “prayer,” I pointed out in a subsequent email to the city clerk’s office and Mayor Colin Basran, expecting they might better explain when a prayer is not really a prayer. I’m still waiting for that explanation.
In Peachland, Rev. Ian McLean of the town’s United Church did the spiritual honours, called to “recite a prayer for the New Council,” according to the inaugural meeting agenda.
As far as I know, atheists did not storm any of these inaugural meetings, demanding all references to spirituality be scrubbed from the proceedings. And of course there was no police action to enforce the court’s ruling; the Mountie at West Kelowna’s council meeting, clad in red serge, was resplendent but inert, save for clapping after each councillor was sworn in.
No one, of course, will base his or her vote in the 2022 municipal election on the saying of prayers at this week’s inaugural meetings.
Inaugural meetings are procedural formalities, attended mostly by friends and families of those who got elected, with the mayorelect offering some boilerplate speechifying.
“During the recent election campaign, we listened to our residents and we heard that there’s a strong appetite for well-balanced change in our community,” West Kelowna mayor-elect Gord Milsom said, using the low-key rhetorical phrase that appeared on all his own campaign materials.
The meetings are, in a word, boring. Even Pastor Richmond left the West Kelowna gathering shortly after saying the prayer, not sticking around to hear Mayor Milsom’s speech.
But still, they are council meetings, and they ought to have been conducted according to the rule laid down by the only higher power that should matter to the elected representatives in whose actions we trust.
Ron Seymour is a Daily Courier reporter. Phone: 250-470-0750. Email: ron.seymour@ok.bc.ca.