Federal Labour Minister Patty Sandju has abandoned talk of core mandate, but still discriminates against pro-life organizations in the Canada Summer Jobs program.
On December 6, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government announced that it would modify the attestation it added to the federal Canada Summer Jobs program. When the application process was unveiled in December 2017, the Trudeau government inserted a new requirement, namely that applicants for federal funding of summer student jobs attest to their support of Charter rights and values, specifically abortion, same-sex “marriage” and transgender rights. The move was condemned by pro-life, faith, and civil liberties groups which called the attestation an ideological litmus test. Campaign Life Coalition condemned the move by pointing out the irony of the government violating the actual Charter rights of freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and freedom of conscience, while standing up for policies such as abortion and same-sex “marriage” that are not mentioned in the Charter.
As a result of the policy, hundreds of potential employers, especially churches or religion-based organizations, forfeited funding from the 2018 Canada Summer Jobs program, even when their work was not related to pro-life. Churches that ran summer camps, food programs, and child care were not hiring students or as many of them, and in some cases, ceased providing those services completely.
Federal Minister of Employment, Workforce, and Labour, Patty Hadju, defended the policy as necessary to prevent organizations that have a “core mandate” to oppose abortion or same-sex “marriage” from accessing taxpayer funding for their work.
Polls showed that the majority of Canadians opposed the government’s attestation policy when applied widely, but a significant number of respondents also disagreed with the government banning funds for actively pro-life groups if it was also funding other forms of political activism.
After the widespread criticism, the Trudeau government tinkered with the policy and announced it would rework the program for 2019.
Last month, the Liberals clarified the policy to exclude only those organizations that work to undermine abortion or promote discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Employers no longer have to attest that their company or organization has a “core mandate” with respect to abortion or homosexuality, although they will have to pledge that the jobs funding “will not be used to undermine or restrict the exercise of rights legally protected in Canada.” It specifically mentions that any job that “actively work(s) to undermine or restrict a woman’s access to sexual and reproductive health services,” is ineligible.
The change elicited support from many opponents of the original policy, notably churches that want Ottawa’s funding for their community projects. But others see a change with little difference.
CLC national president Jeff Gunnarson warned that the new regulations still impose an ideological litmus test on all recipients. “It’s more subtle,” Gunnarson told The Interim, “but the discrimination is still present, and worse, many employers will sign the new attestation without realizing it is still an attestation.”
Gunnarson said the new attestation “indirectly forces employers to assent” to the idea that killing preborn babies is a Charter right and that it should be illicit for those working to change the law to receive summer job funding. While Gunnarson acknowledged that it “may make some sense to prohibit government funding for any political hiring, the fact is many issue-oriented groups are accessing these funds. Pro-life groups are being singled out as ineligible.” Gunnarson urged faith-based organizations and companies owned by Christians to resist going along with the government’s “thinly veiled ideological litmus test that throws their pro-life brothers and sisters under the bus.”
In a statement released by the Catholic Civil Rights League, president Phil Horgan, said that the new policy continues the “suppression of viewpoints not shared by the government.”
Rev. Andrew Bennett said that the Trudeau government’s insistence on banning pro-life groups from receiving job funding demonstrates it does not understand authentic diversity.
Rev. Andrew Bennett, program director for Cardus Law and Canada’s first and only Ambassador for Religious Freedom, said that the new policy demonstrates that even if the Liberals were trying to assuage concerns about their attestation policy, they still do not understand the importance of conscience or respect divergent points of view. Rev. Bennett said, “there still seems to be a blind spot around acknowledging that some people believe different things, and in Canada should be free to believe different things.” He said, “simply because Canadians believe different things, they shouldn’t be penalized around, in this case, employment and jobs for young people.”
Rev. Bennett said the government still seems to be using the Canada Summer Jobs program to force Canadians to follow their ideological lead: “It’s saying directly that if you’re a citizen who holds these contrary views, if your beliefs don’t match that secular orthodoxy, you’re harmful. So, the project of the State becomes getting you in line with what the State believes to be acceptable Canadian values.”
The government is facing nine lawsuits over their attestation policy. It is unclear how the new rules will affect those cases.
