‘He is risen’: Will Pierre Poilievre be able to separate church and state?

As much as some may loathe Quebec’s legislative approach to secularism, there is something to be said about the determination it shows to separate the church from the state.

In a place where evidence of the 400-year-long, all-encompassing grip of the Roman Catholic church still abounds in religious architecture and the like, laity has become as much a Quebec “value” as civil unions, militant unionism and language vigilance.

A recent manifestation of the sacredness of secularism in Quebec was the unholy reaction in the provincial media to Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre’s Easter video message, in French and English.

When your scribe first saw it, he initially thought it was an early April Fool’s joke generated by artificial intelligence.

If you missed it, here it is:

“He is risen. Today Christians celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ. Through his sacrifice he paid the ultimate price for our sins and overcame the power of death itself so that we could rejoice in His promise of everlasting life.

The man who would be prime minister goes on: “The joy of Easter unites all Canadians. It reminds us that although we face hardship we have the promise of a new beginning, of redemption and of the hope of eternal life as families come together to attend church services, paint Easter eggs and enjoy some much-needed rest. May you be refreshed and restored in the spirit of Easter season.”

Poilievre also posted on Facebook a picture of himself with a cross and a murky image of what must be JC in the background, with those words again: “He is risen.”

We get and accept that people believe what they believe as long as they don’t hurt anybody in the process - Hamas and the like being obvious exceptions.

Religious freedom is a protected right in the Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms and “God” - whose? - is still in the national anthem.

There have been relatively few religious zealots amongst Canadian political leaders, with the notorious exception of “Bible Bill” Aberhart, the premier of Alberta in the 1930s. (Google him for a jaw-dropping bio).

Prime ministers have conspicuously kept their faith to themselves; indeed Mackenzie King’s borderline insane obsession with mysticism and seances remained a secret until after his death.

The notion of Canada’s leader during the Second World War seeking advice beyond the grave from his mother and pet dog might not have been comforting to Canadians or other Allied leaders.

Pierre Trudeau, probably the only true intellectual to lead the country and possessed of a profoundly rational mind, was a devout Catholic, a fact he rarely revealed in public.

A review of Citizen of the World: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, John English’s biography of Trudeau, observes: “Even when Trudeau was viciously attacking Quebec priests and bishops, as he did often in the heady political debates of 1950s and ’60s Quebec, he was using the same language, thought categories and basic beliefs as his opponents. The church had shaped him far more than we ever knew, even though he was to later reject some of its basic moral teachings on sexuality.”

That last bit refers to Trudeau’s liberalization of laws on the books regarding divorce, abortion and homosexuality. “The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation,” quoth he, and the corollary of that might be the church has no place in the cabinet rooms of the nation.

Then there’s Poilievre who is clearly an unabashed disciple of Jesus Christ (“our Lord”) and embraces the Christian orthodoxy surrounding “eternal life.” He also obviously does not care what anyone thinks of his evangelical-style beliefs. We can assume he’s locked up the religious right come election time.

But, as Quebec commentators have wondered with some alarm, how would Poilievre separate his devotion to his “saviour” from his political agenda.

As Journal de Quebec/montreal columnist Richard Martineau put it: “The word of God is not a buffet where we only choose the passages that suit us … However, the Bible is clear: God condemns adultery, fornication, homosexuality and considers that the soul is present in every human being from conception.”

He and other observers wonder when and if Poilievre is handed the levers of power of the state, will he serve the people or his Lord?

Prime ministers have conspicuously kept their faith to themselves; indeed Mackenzie King’s borderline insane obsession with mysticism and seances remained a secret until

after his death.