Showing posts with label reasonable accommodation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reasonable accommodation. Show all posts

2014-08-10

Much Ado About Religious Accommodation

Much is being made of a decision by Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) managers at Toronto's Pearson airport to allow a small group of Hindu priests to avoid screening by female border guards to comply with their religious beliefs.

Apparently some female CBSA officers feel that they were discriminated against by this decision. I could understand an outrage if female officers were only allowed to deal with female visitors but this was a small exemption made for a special case. Why all the fuss about this when so many more significant examples of religious discrimination are entrenched in our laws and practices in the name of freedom of religion.

For example an employer being allowed to designate higher profile positions for males only and more subservient positions for women only. This is a clear violation of all Canadian employment legislation and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms but still allowed in the name of freedom of religion.

What about persons delegated by the state the right to perform legal marriage ceremonies being allowed to discriminate in terms of who they will marry on the basis of their personal religious beliefs.

And much more serious, medical practitioners, such as doctors and pharmacists, being allowed to refuse to provide medical treatment or services on the basis of their personal religious beliefs.

Perhaps one of the most outrageous examples of discriminatory religious accommodation, a clear violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but constitutionally allowed, is the public funding of religious-based schools for one religious group only (and not even the largest group at that) - a huge government subsidy to one religious group that all political parties are afraid to deal with because of the risk of losing that groups votes.

If we are to be outraged by inappropriate religious accommodation let us be outraged by matters of substance, not by attempts to accommodate a small groups religious preference that has little impact on others' rights.

Postscript

This post sees the return of the Fifth Column after an interregnum, not caused by a lack of ideas but simply a lack of motivation to make the effort to write them down. Hopefully my posts will be more regular from now on.

2012-01-02

Sometimes I Really Wonder

I think we all have friends, relatives or acquaintances that are caught up in Islamophobia and regularly send out e-mails warning that the Muslims are immigrating and breeding and going to take over the country.

Their usual solution to the "problem" is to force the minorities to abandon their "evil ways" and adapt to the majority culture, essentially for them to assimilate.

It seems to me that, from their point of view, their solution is misguided.

Should they not be welcoming newcomers, respecting their beliefs and accommodating the cultures of the minorities as much as possible while helping them integrate into our multicultural society.

At least that would be the precedent I would want to set if I saw myself as part of a majority that was soon to be displaced and become the minority.

2011-09-11

Thinking It Through Brings Clarity

So what is an atheist who believes in a single secular public school system supposed to think about noon hour Muslim prayers in public schools.

The answer should be simple but first let us look at the context.

In the province of Ontario there are two publicly funded school systems, one for a specific religion and one for everybody else (all other religions and non-religious persons). If one did not have an understanding of the province's constitutional history, one might assume the religion with the separate school system was the largest religious group in the province, but actually it is the second largest group that gets special treatment.

This religion has it's own school system where they are allowed to indoctrinate students in their religion and adopt policies that provide "when there is an apparent conflict between denominational rights and other rights, the board will favour the protection of the denominational rights".

While the Roman Catholic Church, and it's separate school boards, may be exempt from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Constitution Act, Section 29), I cannot ignore it.

Thus, as long as one religion is allowed to have it's own publicly funded school boards in which to indoctrinate students, the minimum reasonable accommodation that should be made for other religions, in the name of equality, is to allow them to use school facilities for prayer services for the convenience of students, as long as no one is compelled to attend such services.

The real solution, of course, is a constitutional amendment to remove discriminatory rights given to one religion and provide for one secular public school system in Ontario, as has been done in other provinces, including Quebec.

2008-01-21

Multiculturalism and Reasonable Accommodation - It’s as Canadian as a Kilt or a Hijab

When you invite friends over do you ever serve food that their religion forbids them to eat. If you go to a wedding of someone of another faith do suggest they should be married in a “Canadian” church. If neighbours invite you to a cultural celebration do you complain about their foreign customs. Of course not, because that would be impolite and certainly not the Canadian way. That is essentially the spirit of “reasonable accommodation” practiced at the personal level.

So why does something that is so natural on a personal level become so controversial on a societal level.

Recent census results indicate that currently there are just over one million aboriginal people in this country. The rest of us are immigrants, or descendants of immigrants. We come from all over the world and we are what makes Canada the wonderful country that it is.

Certainly, due to history, certain groups have become more dominant and certain customs more ingrained in our way of life than others. For example we have a government based on the British Parliamentary system and Christian religious holidays enshrined in statute law. But we are also strengthened by adding the customs of newer Canadian to our way of life.

Canada is a multicultural country that is only strengthened by the many customs and cultures of the people that immigrated to this country to become Canadians. Multiculturalism means that not only do we allow immigrant groups to maintain their customs but also share them with them.

So what is “reasonable accommodation”. Leonard Stern, writing in The Ottawa Citizen, said it best:

Ode to a sales clerk

2007-09-10

The Canada Elections Act - CLARIFICATION

It appears that I have been duped into believing that the Prime Minister actually understood the legislation that his government proposed and passed.

The amendments to the act do not establish photo identification as mandatory.

Bill C-31 states:

SUMMARY

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to improve the integrity of the electoral process by reducing the opportunity for electoral fraud or error. It requires that electors, before voting, provide one piece of government-issued photo identification showing their name and address or two pieces of identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer showing their name and address, or take an oath and be vouched for by another elector.


And for more certainty it states:

21. Sections 143 to 145 of the Act are replaced by the following:

Elector to declare name, etc.

143. (1) Each elector, on arriving at the polling station, shall give his or her name and address to the deputy returning officer and the poll clerk, and, on request, to a candidate or his or her representative.

Proof of identity and residence

(2) If the poll clerk determines that the elector’s name and address appear on the list of electors or that the elector is allowed to vote under section 146, 147, 148 or 149, then, subject to subsection (3), the elector shall provide to the deputy returning officer and the poll clerk the following proof of his or her identity and residence:

(a) one piece of identification issued by a Canadian government, whether federal, provincial or local, or an agency of that government, that contains a photograph of the elector and his or her name and address; or

(b) two pieces of identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer each of which establish the elector’s name and at least one of which establishes the elector’s address.


The Fifth Column apologizes. It should know better than to take Stephen Harper at his word.

The Canada Elections Act and "Reasonable Accommodation"

The Canada Elections Act has recently been amended to require photo identification of voters. Elections Canada, the body responsible for enforcing the Act, has ruled that "electors wearing face coverings for religious practices" do not have to provide photo identification when voting but can provide two pieces of "authorized" identification or be "vouched for" by another elector. Is this a reasonable interpretation of the act. Requiring photo identification becomes rather redundant if one cannot compare the photo to the elector.

What is "reasonable accommodation in these circumstances. According to the Globe and Mail a number of Canadian Muslim organizations have criticized Elections Canada's handling of the issue. "Mohamed Elmasry, head of the Canadian Islamic Congress, which says it is the country's largest Muslim organization, said Muslim groups were not consulted about the rule change. If they had been, he said, he would have told officials that the small minority of Muslim women - perhaps as few as just 50 of Canada's 750,000 Muslims - who wear the niqab would have no problem showing their faces to a female election worker to verify their identity."

It seems that all that was required was consultation with the people affected and a much more reasonable accommodation, one that does not conflict with the spirit, if not the letter of the law, could have been made.