
Image from Brampton Christian Heritage Facebook page
On December 5th, CBC news reported that Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu had introduced Bill C-369 which simply proposes that, since the country is approximately 50% Christian and since December is an important month in the Christian calendar of feasts, we should designate December as Christian Heritage Month across Canada. The bill itself makes no mention of this, but the CBC story links the tabling of the bill to the publication of a discussion paper by the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC). Said discussion paper asserts that the fact that Christmas and Easter are statutory holidays, but the religious feasts of other religions are not, is a form of systemic religious discrimination.
The CBC reports that Ms. Gladu’s bill would be unlikely to come up for debate, which is a good thing, and perhaps I should just leave it there. But I can’t.
Ms. Gladu asserted that everyone else had a heritage month so why not Christians too? She’s not wrong. The Government of Canada website has a page for “important and Commemorative Days” of which there are 63. 63!! Of those 63, 5 provide for Heritage Months based upon religion – Sikhs, Mennonites, Islam, Hindus, and Jews are all designated, although the poor Mennonites only get a week. In addition, we have heritage month declarations for Tamils, Black History, Asian heritage, Dutch, Italian, Filipino, Portugese, Germans and Latin Americans. And that’s just the government of Canada. The government of Ontario mimics or supports many of the Federally designated months and then adds in Bangladesh. The City of Brampton has already passed, in 2019, its own Christian Heritage Month declaration. And the Peel Region school board in 2022 announced that “Peel schools and worksites will recognize and celebrate the rich heritage and contributions of Canada’s Christian community during the month of December.”
What about south of the border? I looked, and to my surprise, I only found a few instances where Google responded to a Christian Heritage month search request. One such declaration was a resolution passed by the Constitution Party of Pennsylvania. A reading of their principles reveals them unmistakeably tied to Libertarian right wing concepts. Their Chrristian Heritage Month resolution has 28 “Whereas” clauses that provide justification for their resolution. Of the 28, 27 describe references to God in historical context of the US, and of those 27, 11 refer specifically to Christianity as opposed to a more generic “God”. One of those clauses identifies two cases in which it was specifically asserted by the Supreme Court that the US is a Christian country – an assertion that is not found in their Constitution, and that threatens the philosophical separation of Church and State. The tone is very definite – they espouse religious tolerance, but they believe that the country is a Christian country, and they are not tolerant of political correctness that attempts to “change and distort our history”.
The second subject that Google tossed up for my reading pleasure was an article about El Dorado county California where the county board of supervisors in September 2023 rescinded a July proclamation that July would be Christian Heritage month. Why did they do that? Well, the original declaration was modeled after the Constitution party declaration, and it generated considerable backlash from Jewish groups and the ACLU which protested that the proclamation inappropriately declared the US to be a Christian country. It was probably unconstitutional, because it violated California law on separation of church and state.
I would oppose the declaration of a Christian Heritage month for several reasons.
First of all, it’s a divisive thing to do. There is no obvious discriminatory objective in Ms Gladu’s bill, but there certainly is in the Pennsylvania version. And regardless of the member’s intent, the declaration will be seen as a victory for the Christian subset of the country. And a win for one side almost always implies a loss for others. Whether that loss is reality or simply perception, it’s a blow against national unity.
Second, this declaration is an attempt to preserve an element of our culture. I’ve heard culture described as what you do when no one’s watching. And the truth is that only about 50% of the inhabitants of this great nation profess to be Christian, and of that 50%, the fraction who attend church on a regular basis is somewhere between 11% and 25%. So, the declaration of a Christian Heritage Month is too little, too late. We might have a Christian heritage in this country, but the harsh truth is most people, including the Christian element, don’t really care. And a significant fraction of those who will want this declaration want it mostly to keep those rag-head brown skinned Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus in their place. (See divisiveness above). A lot of Christian advocacy on issues like this is thinly disguised bigotry. Christians already have statutory holidays for Easter and Christmas, and perhaps they should be satisfied with that. Despite the CHRC memorandum, there is little likelihood that the statutory holiday calendar will change anytime soon.
Third, we have better things for elected representatives to do. In El Dorado county in California, they passed a proclamation urged on them by the right-wing Constitution Party, then fielded a barrage of criticisms including the threat of lawsuits, and had to take time to correct their mistake. It turned out to be an embarrassing waste of time. We should learn from their experience.
In Brampton, where they declared a Christian Heritage month in 2019, not all of the assenting Council members are big fans of the declaration. A news report from Brampton said “City Councillor Martin Medeiros from Ward 3 and 4, said that it was important to consider how long the Council would focus its attention on wrong priorities. He named those wrong priorities as being cultural support or recognition for various groups.
Councillor Medeiros said, “I think we have to be very cautious of the encroachment and the way that we’re really blurring the lines. Ultimately, constitutionally, we are a democratic system with a separation between state and religion. As much as we respect all religions, that’s not our function, and right now, I think we’re blurring the lines. The time and effort on all these sorts of religious and cultural things, to a certain degree, is political pandering.” Exactly, and well said!
The argument for the Brampton declaration was substantially that everyone else has one and so the Christian community demands equal representation. And so, they perpetuated past errors by repeating them and adding one more group to the list.
We should pay attention to the proposition that there should be separation between church and state. The preservation of Christian culture, or Islam culture or Sikhism etc is not a proper function for the government. It’s a matter for the people who profess to belong to each such constituency. Does anybody believe that recognizing and celebrating “the rich heritage and contributions of Canada’s Christian community during the month of December” is really a valid matter for the Peel District School Board to be spending their time on?
Look, government is a system in which an organization that is accountable to all citizens rakes in money from all of us and then spends it on matters that are, for the most part, common to the whole populace. Things like health care, defence and infrastructure improvements. The first thing that a government representative should say when approached by a religious group for government recognition or support is “sorry, we don’t do that. It’s none of our business. That’s not what we’re here for.” If they had done that, they would not have wasted government members time debating those propositions and they would not be dealing with the unintended consequences of doing so.
Unintended consequences. That’s what most of this is about. A growing Muslim community in Brampton wants to celebrate their (imported) cultural heritage and they approach a politician and propose a month in which they can organize a parade, and sell a few souvenirs. (Yes, there is a commercial aspect to all these heritage events). And the politicians think “no real harm and we’d like to make this growing immigrant community feel comfortable” and so the bill is passed. And then the Sikhs want the same thing. As do the Hindus etc. and eventually the Christians demand to get on the bandwagon. And all of the people debating these issues are being paid something (admittedly not much at the municipal level) to deal with this stuff. It’s probably too late to back down now, but the real cure is to get rid of all these heritage designations and turn the issue back to the cultural community that wants to own it. If they want a parade or a demonstration, they can apply for a permit like any other organization. Then politicians and their staff can go back to the legitimate business of government, looking after matters of common concern. And culture wars can be fought between groups which care while the government acts as the referee in the name of peace and justice, not as an enthusiastic participant.
Tamil Heritage month, I believe, is an outgrowth of protests by the Toronto Tamil community against the genocide being pursued against Tamils in Sri Lanka. That’s a valid matter for our Federal government’s Global Affairs Department and I don’t mean to undermine the efforts of Tamil protestors in Toronto. But do you suppose that Tamil Heritage month does anything to diminish the tensions between Tamils and other Sri Lankans in Canada? I doubt it. I rather think we’d have been better off to support the Tamil cause diplomatically, without creating a good guys vs bad guys separation within the Canadian Sri Lankan immigrant community.
Governments at all levels need to have better focus on what is their real raison d’etre. Sucking votes out of every minority community by promoting their separate identities undermines our common national identify, creates division, and wastes time, money and energy.
4 responses to “Why Christian Heritage Month is a Bad Idea”
Well said Dennis…..
And if you need more cannon fodder on the political pandering front, simply subscribe to the PMO site for the ( it seems) daily recognition fluff. I am sure National Tiddlywinks Day is coming based on the trend in pumping out drivel to date
Merry Xmas and Happy Hogmanay
It’s a pleasure to hear from you, Gord. I like your term daily recognition fluff. The problem is that the fluff is often not nearly as harmless as it seems. I would rather see a government looking not too busy doing the things that need to be done than a government looking too busy doing “political pandering“.
Dennis,
Pretty good article. Sorry i have fallen behind on these.
Have a good Christmas (using this opportunity to avoid sending a Christmas card).
Rosemary
I have to admire the efficiency. You have a good Christmas too.