2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
- freedom of conscience and religion;
- freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
- freedom of peaceful assembly; and
- freedom of association.
(Canadian Chart of Rights and Freedoms)
Living in Canada is like living next to a loud mouthed neighbour. Many Canadians have a better understanding of American history than Canadian history. This is probably because American patriotism and nationalism oozes out of their media, and we Canadians to to see a lot of it.
As a result, I had no idea what what section two of our Charter said. I know that the 1 Amendment of the US Constitution is about freedom of religion. But I had no idea that Canada allowed the freedom of conscience. I just happened to look this up because of a number of articles and letters I read with regard to the lobby group Secular Ontario. Secular Ontario is currently writing city councils asking them to stop saying the Lord Prayer before council meetings so that non-Christians, who make up 1 out of every 5 Canadians, don’t feel marginalized or as though their perspective is not been addressed at city council.
I read a letter that said that in Canada you are guaranteed freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. This is patently untrue. As emphasized above, in Canada you are given freedom of conscience, which includes freedom from all religion, if that’s where you conscience leads you. I, personally, think that this is great. I think that everyone should be able to believe whatever they want, or not believe in anything they don’t want. Canada managed to side step that trap that has occurred in the US. However, even then, the US Supreme Court decided that atheism qualifies for the same freedoms as a religion, even though it’s not one.
Sources:
Shawn's Humanist Blog 