Summer jobs grants: Liberals in the wrong

The federal Liberal government is dishonest when it says faith-based groups are free to access a grant program that funds summer jobs for students.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Employment Minister Patty Hadju and, most recently, Peterborough-Kawartha MP and Minister of Status for Women Mariam Monsef have been tying themselves in verbal knots trying to justify an “attestation” clause in the application for job grants.

The clause requires any organization applying for Canada Summer Jobs grants to attest that they support “the right to safe and legal abortion,” along with a list of other human rights.

Monsef was replying to a call by Peterborough Bishop Daniel Miehm for local Catholic parishioners to protest what he called “an assault on the freedoms of conscience and religion, two of the most basic freedoms we enjoy in a democratic society.”

The Liberals say Miehm and representatives of other faith groups who feel as he does are mistaken. It’s not an organization’s beliefs or values that would prevent them from qualifying for the program, but that organization’s “primary activities.”

Taken at face value that statement is simply wrong.

The Catholic Church believes deeply in what it refers to as the sanctity of life, womb to grave. It opposes abortion and, as the Prime Minister has said, is probably out of step with a majority of Canadians in that view.

However, denying women the right to abortion is not the “primary activity” of the Church, which should mean any job program it created that didn’t involve anti-abortion activities would qualify.

And it would, if not for the exception the Liberals have mandated and are trying to ignore.

The exception goes like this: Faith-based organizations qualify, except for those who refuse to sign a document that repudiates their basic beliefs.

The attestation requirement is like demanding that any elected MPs who publicly oppose abortion sign a document acknowledging the rightness of abortion before collecting their salaries.

No repudiation of your faith, no public money.

There are instances where an off-side policy on abortion should turn off the public tap. Hospitals that actively deny women abortion services, for instance, should not receive public funding.

Same for a summer camp that refused to accept LGBTQ children, which was the issue that started the “attestation” movement.

But belief and action are different animals, as the Liberals have said.

Secular Liberals also subscribe to a faith, often referred to as “modern liberalism.” Its foundational belief is a mix of legislated social equality and individual rights that define the best of Canada.

By punishing more traditional faith groups for pursuing their Charter rights the Liberals betray what should be their own code of conduct.