The Montreal Gazette reports that Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe reiterates his support for separation of church and state. Asked about the case of Saguenay Mayor Jean Tremblay who has continued opening council meetings with a prayer despite a Quebec Human Rights Tribunal ruling against him, Duceppe said religion is a private matter, although he maintained Tremblay also had a right to pursue his case in the courts.
And while the advance polls that fell on Easter weekend could not be moved to accommodate Christian voters/volunteers, the French-language leaders’ debate was moved from Thursday to Wednesday as not to compete with a Montreal Canadians game. Okay, I admit this is a fallacious comparison because advance polling is a matter for the bureaucrats at Elections Canada and the leaders debate is agreed to by the politicians, but it is still amusing to point to the way in which the secular is accommodated while the religious is not.
Campaign Life Coalition has been fighting election gag laws going back to the early 1980s. Gerry Nicholls, former vice president of the National Citizens Coalition (which also used to fight against gag laws), has a great post on how restricting third party speech is an affront to our freedom. Democracy is about more than mere voting.
