National
Quebec Premier François Legault says he wants to ban public prayer in province
From LifeSiteNews
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), announced it had sent a “demand letter” to Legault regarding his plan to ban public prayer. “Such a ban is a totalitarian suppression of the freedoms of expression and of conscience and religion”
Quebec Premier François Legault has tasked his top cabinet officials with putting in place a law that would ban all praying in public in Canada’s only historically and culturally Catholic province.
“Seeing people praying in the streets, in public parks, is not something we want in Quebec,” Legault said last week on Friday afternoon.
While Legault directed the ban at “teachers implementing Islamist religious concepts in schools,” the reality is the ban would apply to all faiths, including Catholicism, which is the founding faith of the province.
He was quoted by La Presse recently as saying “We have seen teachers implementing Islamist religious concepts in schools.”
“When we want to pray, we go to a church, we go to a mosque, but not in public places. And, yes, we will look at the means where we can act legally or otherwise,” he said.
Legault said it he has asked members of his cabinet to produce a plan to put the ban in place during the new year and says if he gets pushback he will use the province’s notwithstanding clause to do so.
Canada’s notwithstanding clause, which is in section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, allows provinces to temporarily override sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to protect new laws from being scrapped by the courts.
In 2019, Quebec passed its so-called secularism law, or Bill 21, that bans all public servants, public school teachers, police officers, government lawyers, and wildlife officials from wearing any religious symbols while at work, including crosses or crucifixes.
The province’s highest court upheld the law earlier this year after an appeal to overturn it failed.
Legault, speaking about his proposal to ban public prayer, said he wanted to send a “very clear message to the Islamists.”
“We will fight, and we will never, never accept that people try to not respect the values that are fundamental to Quebec,” he said.
Banning public prayer is a ‘totalitarian suppression’ of free speech, says legal group
While the Canadian Muslim Forum noted that Legault’s words were “deeply troubling,” Canada’s leading constitutional freedom group, the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), announced it had sent a “demand letter” to Legault regarding his plan to ban public prayer.
“Such a ban is a totalitarian suppression of the freedoms of expression and of conscience and religion,” the JCCF said Tuesday regarding its notice of sending the demand letter.
The JCCF wrote in the demand letter that far from reinforcing secularism, the ban on praying in public places would “contradict the principles on which the secularism law is based: “(1) the religious neutrality of the State, (2) the equality of all citizens, and (3) freedom of religion.”
In the demand letter, lawyer Olivier Séguin wrote that Legault’s “approach to the situation” suggests a “militant, anti-religious and dogmatic conception of one of the healthiest and oldest practices that human beings have maintained in their relationships with their fellow human beings and with a higher power.”
“The ban on prayer announced by the Premier borrows from the intolerant overtones of a state atheism that flourished east of the Iron Curtain during the 20th century, and of which history has retained only sad memories. In so doing, our government would be violating the principles of religious neutrality, equality and freedom of religion on which the secular state is supposed to be based,” he added.
When it comes to the historical fact of Quebec’s Catholic heritage and past, Quebec Life Coalition President Georges Buscemi earlier this year observed to LifeSiteNews that laws such as the secularism one in reality reflect the rejection of faith by today’s Quebecers.
“This decision is completely consistent with the recent historical trend in Quebec, which is one of rejecting its Catholic heritage in favor of a liberal ‘enlightened’ worldview, which considers religion to be a purely private matter,” he told LifeSiteNews.
From Jason Nixon, MLA for Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre and Alberta’s Minister of Seniors, Community and Social Services on X
Alberta’s government immediately took action to support those who lost their homes in the Jasper wildfire. We were on track to deliver 250 homes, but Alberta cannot do this without land. It’s been radio silence from Ottawa since Premier Danielle Smith sent a letter to the Prime Minister nearly a month ago. Read my full statement
From the Fraser Institute
By Ben Eisen
In the days following Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation as leader of the Liberal Party, there has been much ink spilt about his legacy. One effusively positive review of Trudeau’s tenure claimed that his successors “will be hard-pressed to improve on his economic track record.”
But this claim is difficult to square with the historical record, which shows the economic story of the Trudeau years has been one of dismal growth. Indeed, when the growth performance of Canada’s economy is properly measured, Trudeau has the worst record of any prime minister in recent history.
There’s no single perfect measure of economic success. However, growth in inflation-adjusted per-person GDP—an indicator of living standards and incomes—remains an important and broad measure. In short, it measures how quickly the economy is growing while adjusting for inflation and population growth.
Back when he was first running for prime minister in 2015, Trudeau recognized the importance of long-term economic growth, often pointing to slow growth under his predecessor Stephen Harper. On the campaign trail, Trudeau blasted Harper for having the “worst record on economic growth since R.B. Bennett in the depths of the Great Depression.”
And growth during the Harper years was indeed slow. The Harper government endured the 2008/09 global financial crisis and subsequent weak recovery, particularly in Ontario. During Harper’s tenure as prime minister, per-person GDP growth was 0.5 per cent annually—which is lower than his predecessors Brian Mulroney (0.8 per cent) and Jean Chrétien (2.4 per cent).
So, growth was weak under Harper, but Trudeau misdiagnosed the causes. Shortly after taking office, Trudeau said looser fiscal policy—with more spending, borrowing and bigger deficits—would help spur growth in Canada (and indeed around the world).
Trudeau’s government acted on this premise, boosting spending and running deficits—but Trudeau’s approach did not move the needle on growth. In fact, things went from bad to worse. Annual per-person GDP growth under Trudeau (0.3 per cent) was even worse than under Harper.
The reasons for weak economic growth (under Harper and Trudeau) are complicated. But when it comes to performance, there’s no disputing that Trudeau’s record is worse than any long-serving prime minister in recent history. According to our recent study published by the Fraser Institute, which compared the growth performance of the five most recent long-serving prime ministers, annual per-person GDP growth was highest under Chrétien followed by Martin, Mulroney, Harper and Justin Trudeau.
Of course, some defenders will blame COVID for Trudeau’s poor economic growth record, but you can’t reasonably blame the steep but relatively short pandemic-related recession for nearly a decade of stagnation.
There’s no single perfect measure of economic performance, but per-person inflation-adjusted economic growth is an important and widely-used measure of economic success and prosperity. Despite any claims to the contrary, Justin Trudeau’s legacy on economic growth is—in historical terms—dismal. All Canadians should hope that his successor has more success and oversees faster growth in the years ahead.
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