SURVEY REVEALS SHARP DIVIDE IN B.C. OVER ALLOWING PRAYERS IN SCHOOLS

The vast majority of B.C. Muslims expect their ceremonies and prayers to be permitted in public schools, according to a poll.

But most British Columbians appear to oppose the idea.

A Mainstreet Research poll found 89 per cent of B.C. Muslims answered yes to this question.

“Do you believe Muslim ceremonies or prayers should be allowed in public schools?”

However, only 20 per cent of B.C. residents said they believed Muslim ceremonies or prayers should be allowed in public schools, while 62 per cent opposed it.

The Mainstreet poll of 5,500 British Columbians simply asked respondents the general question of whether they believed Muslim or other religious ceremonies or prayers should be allowed in public schools.

The poll did not ask respondents to air their views on more specific questions, such as whether it would be acceptable to expose all students to Muslim prayers or other religious behaviour — or whether just those students who wanted such prayers would be accommodated. But the result of the Mainstreet poll, conducted in April, remains significant. It shows that British Columbians have widely diverging views about which different religious practices should be permitted on public school grounds.

The poll question, for instance, revealed Catholics and non-religious people appear somewhat more open to Muslim prayers in schools than the typical British Columbian.

But fewer than 10 per cent of B.C. Sikhs and Buddhists endorse the concept.

In a separate question, Mainstreet pollsters discovered that four out of 10 Muslims, the same proportion of all British Columbians, believed Christian prayers should be permitted in public schools.

Only three of 10 British Columbians were in favour of First Nations’ smudging ceremonies or prayers in schools.

The issue of mandatory prayers or ceremonies came to a head earlier this year in B.C. when a Port Alberni mother went to B.C. Supreme Court to stop her children’s public school teachers from expecting students to join in “smudging” ceremonies led by aboriginal elders.