Request School Boards to Play Instrumental Versions of O Canada only. Protect Students’ Right to Freedom From Religion
Publisher: In-Sight Publishing
Publisher Founding: September 1, 2014
Publisher Location: Fort Langley, Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada
Publication: Freethought Newswire
Publication Date: December 4, 2024
Organization: Secular Connexion Séculière
Organization Description: Secular Connexion Séculière (SCS) is a national organization dedicated to advocating and lobbying for atheist rights in Canada, to facilitating communication and dialogue among Canadian atheists, and to communicating Canadian human rights values to the world. SCS does not have, nor does it seek, any governing powers in the Canadian atheist community. Rather, it seeks support for its efforts to defend non-believers right to freedom from religion, to lobby the Canadian government on the behalf of Canadian atheists, to provide communication conduits for Canadian atheist organizations.
December 4, 2024 – 12:00 am
As of December 5, jeewan chanicka [sic] is not longer the Director of Education for the Waterloo Region District School Board. No explanation for his departure has been given. This has nothing to do with our campaign to use the WRDSB as a starting point for the campaign detailed below, except that we will have to establish contact with the interim director, and the committee on Equity and Inclusion. We would prefer to get the boards to agree to the playing instrumental versions of O Canada, rather than going the Human Right Commission route.
Across Canada schools begin their school day with the playing of O Canada, usually with the official, theist lyrics. Intentionally or not, this violates the right of non-believing students to freedom from religion. Additionally, French teachers often ask students to memorize the official French lyrics that are even more theist than the English ones. This is a serious case of our non-believing students’ right to freedom from religion in public schools being denied.
Public school boards do have a dilemma. They wish to conform to the law of the land (National Anthems Act of 1980), but now face requests from us to stop using those lyrics. Most French teachers will probably allow students to memorize the secular version we have published here when asked. However, we would like the practice to be universal (http://www.secularconnexion.ca/a-national-anthem-for-everyone/).
To help boards avoid this dilemma, SCS is asking boards to play instrumental versions only, and to formally ask French teachers to allow the memorizing of the secular French version we have published. We are couching this in terms of the accommodations that religious students receive to honour their cultural and faith practices.
Our first target board is The Waterloo Region District School Board, and we have written their director of education with our request for this accommodation. We await his reply. This my turn into a human rights case before the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and we have some students who are interested in putting a complaint forward.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen, or the author(s), and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors copyright their material, as well, and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
In-Sight Publishing 