Amid the attention paid to the various historic "firsts" achieved by Prime Minister Trudeau's inaugural cabinet (most women, most aboriginals, etc) one landmark has largely escaped notice: in open defiance of tradition, nearly half of the new PM's ministers opted to take their oath of office without a bible (or other holy book) in hand, and closed their pledge without the customary "so help me God." Trudeau himself did his oath by the book — so to speak — but many of his top lieutenants, including foreign minister Stephane Dion, Treasury Board president Scott Brison, and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould did not. Even heritage minister Mélanie Joly, who you might expect to possess some bias towards the old-fashioned, eschewed the God-and-bible routine.
Not knowing the ministers personally, it's obviously difficult to ascertain why so many opted out. Perhaps some are atheist or agnostic. Some might be so devout they find taking oaths on holy books using God's name blasphemous. But, being as they are all members of the Liberal Party, odds are highest the majority simply find public demonstrations of religiosity backwards and distasteful.
The Canadian left has an unusual relationship with religion, and it's growing more complicated by the day. We may recall that progressives exerted great effort this past election vigorously defending various devout communities: burka-clad women at citizenship ceremonies, faithful Syrians escaping sectarian violence, Muslims afraid of having their cultural practices labeled "barbaric," and so on. Yet in all cases, the religions they were most eager to defend were at the margins of Canadian demography.
To use their own jargon, today's progressive secularists — whose leaders are overwhelmingly caucasians of Christian heritage — seek to "other" religion, making it the exclusive realm of quaint and exotic minorities. Strong religiosity among the ever-growing ranks of so-called "new Canadians" coupled with declining faith among the old stock helps undermine and crowd out Canada's religious traditions of years past, delighting a self-loathing ruling class who regard their country's historically European-derived culture as embarrassing at best or oppressive and "colonialist" at worst.
Ponder the odd paradox of Trudeau's hyper-secular cabinet boasting two deeply devout Sikh men as ministers. Both wear turbans and beards because their faith claims one's odds of positive reincarnation improve if you never cut your hair. Homosexuals cannot be married in Sikh temples and Sikhs regard abortion as a hideous atrocity, believing human life to begin at conception. A cabinet member who insisted on wearing a prominent crucifix on his lapel (or for that matter, a yarmulke) to demonstrate his devotion to a faith hostile to same-sex relationships and reproductive choice would be viewed as a literal manticore by the "Happy Holidays" set, yet Defense Minister Sajjan has received endless praise from progressives for his "badass" military background, with the only mention of his religion coming in the form of compliments to Prime Minister Trudeau for giving a non-Christian such an important gig.
The left's intentional habit of confusing secularism with de-Christianization has done little to minimize the role of faith in Canadian society; increasingly, it just means as Christians stand down, religions whose roots in Canadian culture are far shallower step up. What results is not a Canada free of the imagined regressive or irrational influences of faith, but simply one where religious cultures from the developing world fill an abandoned space. Our new faithful, after all, do not generally hail from corners of the globe with particularly inspiring records when it comes to tolerating heretics — to say nothing of women and sexual minorities. It wasn't Christians who were lining up outside Premier Wynne's constituency office to protest her sex-ed curriculum, it was women in veils.
In a diverse society where most citizens are believers of some sort or another, faith can be a source of unity, and through that unity, assimilation. Preserving Canada's tradition of restrained, moderate religiosity while preventing the country from segregating along sectarian lines or enabling extremism behooves those in leadership positions — even if not personally religious themselves — to positively model how faith can be integrated into public life by participating in the many nondenominational, monotheistic traditions that permeate Canadian civic culture. This includes everything from singing "God keep our land" in the national anthem, to saying prayers before meetings, to soliciting His help after reciting an oath of office.
The Charter of Rights proclaims Canada a country that recognizes the "supremacy of God" in its very first sentence. Even if you don't believe in a higher power, that line has one.
Written by J.J McCullough
