OTTAWA – The Supreme Court of Canada has banned prayers, like the one held by the winning team of Surrey mayor Linda Hepner when she and the council was sworn in late last year, at municipal council meetings, ruling them unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court ruled that a prayer recited by the municipal council of Saguenay, in combination with the circumstances surrounding that prayer, breached the state’s duty of neutrality and resulted in a violation of the rights of an atheist complainant.
“The Supreme Court did not ban offering prayers at government events, but they did offer guidance about when a prayer may cross a line,” says Bruce Clemenger, President of The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. “It was the circumstances and context of the prayer that the Court found violated the neutrality of the state and contravened the religious freedom of an atheist who challenged the prayer.”
In the decision the Court noted that an Ontario court had upheld the reciting of a prayer before town council meetings and did not overrule this decision. Likewise, the decision notes that the House of Commons opens each day with a prayer, but says that the circumstances of the recitations of the two prayers are different.
The Court said:
• The state must be neutral, neither favouring nor hindering any particular belief – or non-belief.
• Public spaces must be neutral – that is, free from coercion, pressure and judgment on the part of public authorities in matters of spirituality.
• The purpose of neutrality is to insure that the state is, and appears to be, open to all points of view regardless of their spiritual basis.
• A state practice is discriminatory if it can be shown to have a religious purpose that interferes with someone’s ability to act in accordance with his or her beliefs in a manner that is non-trivial or insubstantial.
