It has officially been ten years since the Supreme Court of Canada ruled to affirm religious neutrality, and nearly three since B.C. residents last heard a prayer at their municipal council meetings.
"The winds have shifted," said Ian Bushfield, the executive director of the B.C. The Humanist Association is an organization dedicated to upholding secularism in government.
On April 15, the British Columbia Humanist Association (BCHA) celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada香蕉视频直播檚 historic Saguenay decision, which states that including prayer in municipal council meetings was unconstitutional and a violation of the government's duty to uphold religious neutrality. In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the decision, the B.C. Humanists released a report titled to acknowledge the advocacy of its members and efforts made by communities across the province to uphold religious neutrality and secularism in government.
Bushfield explained that while the Saguenay decision was put into law in 2015, not all municipalities conformed and removed prayer from inaugural or regular council meetings.
"Some were defiant," he said."One of the challenges with a decision like this is that is not an obvious enforcement mechanism besides groups like ours or local citizens."
For the B.C. Humanists, the anniversary of the Saguenay decision also marked a time to celebrate three years of compliance and commitment to religious neutrality across B.C., achieved in large part by the actions of the association's members said Bushfield.
The Humanists found that in 2020, 26 municipalities across B.C. had continued to include prayer in their 2018 inaugural council meetings. Inaugural meetings are typically ceremonial as they welcome the newly elected council members, and were, therefore, the most likely meetings to include prayer.
After the B.C. Humanists engaged in communication and educational efforts with the municipalities, only seven included prayer in the 2022 inaugural meetings, said Bushfield.
The prayers heard in the 2022 inaugural council meetings were predominantly Christian (Belcarra, Colwood, Delta, Parksville, Tumbler Ridge, West Kelowna) while the Vancouver council meeting featured Christian, Jewish, Sikh and Muslim prayers. Of the eleven prayers that were heard, the B.C. Humanists reported that eight were given by a man, two by a woman and one by a choir group.
After years of communication and education the B.C. Humanists published in 2023, and declared British Columbia to be free of prayer in inaugural municipal council meetings.
Further, the B.C. Humanists found no instances of any municipality including prayer in regular council meetings from a review of council minutes and recordings from across the province taken between November 2022 to April 2024 and declared a Prayer Free B.C. with the publication of a report on April 15.
Additionally, the B.C. Humanists found that the number of municipalities that included Indigenous territorial acknowledgements in their regular council meetings rose from 104 in 2022 to 114 in 2024.
For more importance on secularism, religious neutrality and the goals of the B.C. Humanists Association, visit .
