Religious leaders call for end to rights-based job funding rules

Religious leaders are calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to reverse a policy that requires organizations to pledge their respect for abortion rights and the rights of LGBTQ Canadians before receiving federal funding to create summer jobs for youth.

Nearly 90 representatives of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, the Canadian Council of Imams, and the Jewish Shaarei Shomayim Congregation and other faith groups have issued a letter to Trudeau, urging him to accommodate the “diversity of values and beliefs in Canadian society.”

Trudeau’s government has said organizations seeking summer job funding will have to affirm that neither their “core mandate” nor the job itself oppose human rights, including those related to abortion, sexual orientation and gender identity.

Officials have clarified that the core mandate refers to groups’ “primary activities,” not their religious views.

The government says it received complaints last year that summer job funding had been given to summer camps that refused to hire LGBTQ staff and groups that distribute graphic anti-abortion pamphlets.

Archbishop of Toronto Cardinal Thomas Collins said at a news conference presenting the letter that it was unfair for the government to address specific concerns about the types of jobs being given to youth by using a “broad-brush” ideological test.