Cutting prison chaplains won’t save money, critics say
Federal government accused of attack on religious freedom, Charter of Rights
OTTAWA — A decision to cut about 50 part-time minorityfaith chaplains serving federal inmates across Canada was met with widespread criticism Friday, both inside and outside the House of Commons.
Opposition MPs accused the government of attacking religious freedom in direct contravention of the Charter of Rights, while Jewish, Muslim and Sikh clerics involved in the prison program called it a misguided move that’s unlikely to save money or souls.
Meanwhile, Canada’s prison watchdog and the interfaith committee on chaplaincy tasked with advising the government on spiritual issues involving inmates suggest they were left out of the decision-making process altogether and are still trying to ascertain the impact.
“This is not a costly program,” NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar said during Friday’s question period.
“The minister has no justification for cutting it.”
Given the government’s commitment to religious freedom abroad — it announced with great fanfare the creation of an Office of Religious Freedom — Dewar accused the government of being “hypocritical.”
Liberal justice critic Irwin Cotler said requiring inmates of other faiths to seek religious guidance from Christian chaplains is “clearly discriminatory” and contrary to the government’s promise not to give some religions preferential treatment.
Candice Bergen, parliamentary secretary to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, defended the plan, noting the government continues to support religions freedom and convicts will still have “reasonable access” to religious counselling and services.
“The government does fund full-time chaplains. In addition to serving members of their own faith, these chaplains also make themselves available on a by-request basis to provide spiritual advice to the general population,” she said.
“The Canadian Forces have used this type of chaplaincy program for years. If it’s good enough for our armed forces, then it is good enough for inmates in our federal penitentiaries.”
The prison chaplain program is said to cost about $6.4 million, $1.3 million of which covers the part-time chaplains. Figures obtained by Postmedia News suggest there are 49 part-time chaplains, 18 of them non-Christian.
There are about 80 full-time chaplains serving inmates at federal penitentiaries.
Besides one imam serving Ontario, the rest are either Roman Catholic or Protestant.
There are also about 2,500 volunteers providing religious services to inmates, something the government promises will continue. Spiritual services for aboriginal inmates, which are explicitly provided for in the Correctional and Conditional Release Act, are also unaffect- ed by the policy change.
British Columbia-based RabbiDina-HasidaMercy had a 17.5-hour-a-month contract to provide services to about 44 Jewish inmates at various federal institutions.
From counselling inmates and teaching Hebrew, to leading prayers and consulting with food service personnel about kosher diets, her duties were varied and she said Friday she can’t understand how a Christian chaplain can do it all for all faiths.
“Most people think that this is about cost savings,” she said.
Sikh chaplain Harkirat Singh had a contract for 45 hours a month to visit every institution in the Pacific Region twice and he said he can’t comprehend how a Christian could possibly step in.
“You have to have some kind of expertise to deliver the service,” he said, calling the decision “discriminatory.”
You
need big ideas to win elections. These ideas change the direction of a country.
Elections are a time of renewal. They allow politicians the time to engage the electorate and, in so doing, create affinity to themselves and their party.
Elections challenge the very nature of citizenship and what we as voters can do to make our country a better place — not just for ourselves, but for our neighbours as well.
Deciding whom to vote for is complicated because big ideas engage us in issues that may not be popular but that challenge how we think practically, morally, ethically and economically. It is an opportunity for politicians to be brave, to put themselves second and their country first.
Elections give our leaders an opportunity to demonstrate a path to where they want to take us. If you do not know where you want to end up, you will never get there.
We have been fortunate to have had leaders who changed not only what we think of ourselves, but also how we conduct our daily business.
Sir John A. Macdonald led the charge for a continental railway. Sir Wilfrid Laurier brought his country into the 20th century and sought to inspire his people to greatness. In the 1970s and 1980s, Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney won elections with big ideas that transformed the country.
Trudeau’s big ideas includ- ed multiculturalism, patriation of the constitution and the National Energy Program, which resulted in the creation of Petro-Canada. Though the NEP was unpopular in Alberta and the west, Petro-Canada led to the development of offshore exploration in Atlantic Canada. Newfoundland and Labrador is now a “have” rather than a “have-not” province as a result. Somewhere, my friend Joe Smallwood must be dancing.
Mulroney won big taking advice from Donald Macdonald, the former Liberal cabinet minister who headed the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada set up by Trudeau and that recommended Canada undertake free-trade talks with the U.S. (something Macdonald called “a leap of faith.”)
Mulroney’s pursuit of free trade was an extremely brave move and resulted in the restructuring of many manufacturing industries, especially in Ontario. Free trade changed our way of thinking and doing business, and ultimately contributed to an enormous generation of wealth. And it demonstrated to subsequent prime ministers that it was beneficial to pursue more free-trade agreements, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper is doing.
Then there was the Goods and Services Tax, which Mulroney proposed and the opposition fought against. It was a big issue in the 1993 election, in which Liberal leader Jean Chrétien famously proposed to “axe the tax,” along with repealing NAFTA. Fortunately for Canada, he did neither.
International trade accounted for 80 per cent of new jobs in Canada between 1993 and 2000, and the GST changed the revenue base for Ottawa. It was the precursor that subsequently allowed Paul Martin as finance minister to achieve balanced budgets. This put Canada on a stable financial footing and gave businesses the confidence to invest. International trade and the GST are among the main reasons Canada enjoys the strongest fiscal framework in the G8 today.
Mulroney believed in a more prosperous Canada and implemented big ideas to get us there. For him, elections were a time to challenge the electorate, and he did so brilliantly. For me, it always seemed that he loved not just campaigning, but debating ideas.
Both Trudeau and Mulroney won majority governments because they promised major changes in the daily lives of Canadians. Canadians bought into those changes. They understood the benefits and voted for them.
Both men had convictions. Both believed in their ideas. Canadians did not love either of them when they retired. But both changed our country, and made it better. Both gave Canadians confidence in themselves.
And both, I firmly believe, will go down in history as advocates for a better Canada.
Like Macdonald and Laurier, Trudeau and Mulroney had big, bold agendas. It’s the “vision thing” that separates great leaders from good leaders. And there is no question that Brian Mulroney and Pierre Trudeau were great prime ministers whose big ideas made our country and our people more just, more prosperous and more confident. This article is adapted from a text published in Inside Policy, the magazine of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an Ottawa-based public-policy think-tank.