Article Added On: June 14, 2008 - over 3 years ago
Title: MPPs vote to keep Lord's Prayer
Original URL: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=e33d1cd8-8e31-4807-b1bb-66a89ef5b8ef
Author: Lee Greenberg
Publication: The Ottawa Citizen
Publication Date: June 13, 2008 - over 3 years ago
Faith Groups: Muslim, Roman Catholic, Evangelical Christian, Jewish, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu
Themes: religion in politics

Abstract: Ontario legislature opts to introduce multi-faith rotation

TORONTO - Ontario legislators charged with modernizing the daily prayer ritual at Queen's Park yesterday agreed to keep the Lord's Prayer, reaffirming the primacy of Christianity in the provincial assembly.

Instead of scrapping the prayer in favour of a more inclusive invocation, MPPs voted unanimously to add a second, rotating prayer that will take at least nine other forms -- Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Sikh, Jewish and Baha'i prayers, as well as a moment of silence, a Native spiritual passage and a non-denominational prayer blessing Queen Elizabeth and her representative in the province.

"Some of these carvings, the coat of arms, our flags, our mottoes -- the very architecture (of) these (legislative) buildings -- are based on Christianity and the British parliamentary system," said Conservative MPP Garfield Dunlop. "In our caucus, we're just not prepared to send that out the door. We believe that the Lord's Prayer is part of that. Christianity is part of the very foundation of our wonderful country."

Premier Dalton McGuinty, who in February exhorted legislators to "move beyond" the Lord's Prayer, was absent from Queen's Park when MPPs voted 58-0 in favour of the tweaked arrangement yesterday.

Opposition leader Bob Runciman said the vote was "a slap in the face" to Mr. McGuinty by his own caucus.

"Because they're rejecting his suggestion as well as every other party in the place," Mr. Runciman said.

Mr. McGuinty denied he was ducking the legislature out of embarrassment.

"I was just caught up in other things," he told reporters at an afternoon speaking engagement. "But I'm proud of this and I assume responsibility for initiating it at the outset."

The Ottawa-born premier portrayed the compromise position as reconciling "the past with the present."

Mr. McGuinty had earlier acknowledged his elderly mother, Elizabeth, was among the thousands of Ontarians to speak out against tinkering with the Christian prayer.

"Her concern, and the concern I think shared by many Ontarians, is are we giving up something, are we losing something that's important to us," he said yesterday. "I knew there would be some consternation that would flow from this proposal."

The decision was received well by members of other faiths, including Rabbi Reuven Bulka, head of Ottawa's Machzikei Hadas synagogue, who described the new setup as "a perfect balance."

"I think it would have been a mistake to scrap it because it's part of our tradition," he said. "As we move forward, we shouldn't forget about our history."

Others, however, were less enthusiastic.

Secular activist Henry Beissel described the decision as retrograde and driven by politicians' desire not to lose votes.

"Our legislators don't understand that they are insulting, degrading and discriminating against those who don't share their views," said Mr. Beissel, president of Secular Ontario. "A moment of silence is the only respectful way to treat individuals in a multi-faith society."

In the past several years, Mr. Beissel and others have pushed to have the Lord's Prayer banned from municipal meetings across the province.

A Court of Appeal decision in 1999 ruled that practice unconstitutional because it "imposed a Christian moral tone" on public discussion.

The practice has continued, nevertheless, Mr. Beissel said.

"I think it's very sad that Canada can't move forward into the 21st century," he said. "This type of religious fanaticism and racism belongs to past centuries and it's time to move on."

The Lord's Prayer, a predominant recitation in the public sphere for more than a century, was famously banished from many Ontario classrooms in 1988, when the Ontario Court of Appeal struck down a regulation that required public schools to begin their day with it.

The court cited the province's multicultural makeup in its decision.

Mr. McGuinty cited the same reasons when he originally urged a change in February, raising the issue seemingly out of the blue.

At the time, he cited statistics showing one-third of Ontario's population is born outside of Canada, a figure that rises to nearly one-half in the Greater Toronto Area.

"It is time to move beyond the daily recitation of the Lord's Prayer in the Ontario legislature to a more inclusive approach that reflects 21st-century Ontario," he said at the time.

Quebec's national assembly observes a moment of silence instead of a prayer, while B.C. legislators rotate prayers each day.

Mr. McGuinty mentioned both those examples when he struck an all-party panel to explore the province's options to modernize it's daily prayer ritual.

Ontarians who responded to a legislative website were about 56 per cent in favour of keeping the Lord's Prayer. Another roughly 30 per cent were in favour of opening with a prayer, but not necessarily the Christian one.

Only seven per cent of the 8,110 respondents called on the government to discontinue all prayers.

"I'm very comfortable with the decision we made," said Speaker Steve Peters, chairman of the panel.

Some believe the change will now lead to problems of inclusion, as more marginal faiths try to gain recognition in Ontario's prayer roster.

A similar issue was recently debated in England, when a Satanic group tried to gain official recognition, Rabbi Bulka said.

"It'll definitely be a little bit of a challenge," he said. "(But) it's not something new."