Summer job funding rules ‘not fair’: groups

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

Representatives of nearly 90 Christian, Muslim and Jewish groups issued a letter to Trudeau, urging him to accommodate the “diversity of values and beliefs” in Canadian society.

“We want to ensure that Canadians continue to benefit from the collaboration between government and faith-based organizations, working together for the common good of our country,” Evangelical Fellowship of Canada President Bruce Clemenger said at a news conference where the letter was introduced.

“We are unable to give nonnegotiable, unqualified affirmation to undefined values and other rights ... At the risk of losing funding or programs themselves that benefit so many Canadians, the government has placed us in an untenable situation.”

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” referred to in the policy relates to groups’ “primary activities,” not their religious views.

The government has said it received complaints last year that federal summer job money had been given to summer camps that refuse to hire LGBTQ staff and groups that distribute graphic anti-abortion pamphlets.

The religious leaders who spoke at Thursday’s event — including members of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Canadian Council of Imams and the Jewish Shaarei Shomayim Congregation — said the government ought to target the specific groups at the root of those concerns.

“If the government has a difficulty with a particular group doing something which they feel is not acceptable, I would say they should speak to that group,” said Archbishop of Toronto Cardinal Thomas Collins. “But to put in a kind of wide-open ideological test for everybody — which we cannot in conscience sign — I think that’s not fair.”