Freedom of conscience in Canada
Freedom of conscience is a constitutional right in Canada, but what does that mean in practice?
Yesterday, I had the privilege of attending an event organized by the Canadian think tank Cardus. Few things can take me away from the television during NFL playoffs, but Cardus has a stellar reputation for bringing together inspiring people. This weekend’s event did not disappoint.
One of the issues discussed at the event was “freedom of conscience” in Canada. It’s a constitutional right in Section 2(a) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And it’s one of those ideas that most people would agree is important, but we rarely discuss what that freedom looks like in practice.
I’m grateful to have heard different points of view and want to share some of what I’ve learned in my own reading since.
In the news
The primacy of conscience rights has been debated in two recent Canadian news stories.
Last week, the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear the appeal of a British Columbia court decision that stopped a hydroelectric generation plant from being built on a creek that has spiritual significance to the Cheam First Nation. The engineer seeking to build the plant argued that his freedom of conscience and religion was being violated because the government’s decision to stop the plant was adhering to Indigenous spirituality.
Shari Narine’s summary of the case in Yahoo News details the following:
Both the BC Supreme Court in its 2020 decision and the BC Court of Appeal in its 2022 decision held that the director was not evaluating religious dogma but was recognizing the Cheam’s spiritual beliefs and practices “as worthy of protection as part of the mandate process of reconciliation.”
Furthermore, Justice Grauer in the (British Columbia) Court of Appeal’s decision, stated, “(Redmond’s) beliefs do not entitle him to interfere with the ability of others to practice their beliefs. His desire to build a hydroelectric project in a place where he has no legal right to do so, and where the Cheam have been practising spiritual bathing for millennia, had nothing to do with a belief system protected by” the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Last fall, the primacy of conscience rights was raised in parliament in a private member’s bill. MP Kelly Block’s bill sought to amend the Criminal Code of Canada so that health care workers could not be forced to participate in euthanasia, which is often called “medical assistance in dying.” The bill did not pass.
Stephanie Taylor reported on the bill last October for The Canadian Press:
Ontario’s Court of Appeal has also ruled that allowing doctors to refuse to provide referrals would stigmatize already vulnerable patients and restrict their access to medical services.
Despite that, many Conservatives oppose the federal Liberal government’s handling of its medical assistance in dying regime, and feel there are not enough protections in place for those in health care.
Block released a statement after Wednesday’s vote, saying there is growing concern among medical professionals they “may be forced to participate” in the procedure, given plans for its expansion.
A law professor’s perspective
University of British Columbia law professor Brian Bird is one of Canada’s preeminent voices on freedom of conscience. In an article for CBC News, Bird explains why this freedom is especially important for health care professionals:
A decade ago, it was hard to imagine that euthanasia for the terminally ill would be legal in Canada. Only a few years ago, it was unthinkable that euthanasia would ever be afforded to persons with mental illness. But here we are.
Does anyone want a health-care system that obliges the people who work within it to disable their moral compass and unreflectively endorse whatever the state labels as health care? It is easy to say that health-care workers cannot refuse to participate in whichever services are lawful when we agree with what is lawful. But what happens when we disagree?
In the Saskatchewan Law Review, Bird offers a clear perspective on what freedom of conscience means and why all Canadians should be concerned about protecting the fundamental right.
I agree that conscience largely transcends religion and irreligion. Conscience is about living in alignment with our moral judgments, no matter the source of these judgments. By this interpretation, freedom of conscience protects pacifists, whether they are atheist, agnostic, or religious, who refuse to bear arms because they consider it immoral to do so. These individuals are equally protected by freedom of conscience as their refusals are equally based on a moral judgment.
If moral freedom is what freedom of conscience protects, why we protect this freedom may boil down to the fact that conscience touches on core moral commitments that sustain our identity and integrity—who I am and what I stand for—in a fundamental sense.
There’s plenty of food for thought in debates over freedom of conscience, which affirms Bird’s underlying point on the primacy of conscience rights.
Given the direction of Canadian politics today, and the increase in high profile cases of political discrimination, I suspect Canadians will be hearing a lot more about conscience rights for workers and citizens in the coming months and years.
My family helped found the CCF a century ago, and built the Ont NDP in the 70s. I grew up inside a concealed Fabian nightmare that I have no doubt constitutes treason. The NDP I know from the campaign trail in an era before smartphones is a full blown foreign intelligence operation - this latest China stuff is child's play compared to the inter-generational agenda pursued by my family and clearly many others.
I ran away age 15 in 1980 to escape their violent abuse. No one will tell me how I lost my right eye as an infant, and I have no memory of this event. I grew up in a slum in Ottawa to secure my father's seat on the Poverty Pimp Express, while he lived with a man in Toronto most of the time, humiliating my mother until she went insane.
I was raised without God, and all my babies over the years died in the facilities their own grandfather legalized and fully funded.
This is not about me and my crybaby bullshit.
My story only matters because these are the people in your govt, intentionally destroying everything good in the name of their Dark Master, the Father of Lies.
TowerOfBabel dot ca
Sir, firstly a thank you for this brief but substantive piece.
I am firmly of the belief that the only freedom of conscience that one is ALLOWED to have today is "go along to get along" and to accept and parrot the popular opinion of the time.
That means that one cannot question the popular narrative, be it climate change, COVID policy, the "correctness" of gender this, that or the other, or so much else. I deplore that one cannot even discuss these issues without being labelled some hateful thing.
Ah! I just started to give examples of the absurdities of much of our society and have deleted those examples entirely.
Suffice to say, ethics and freedom of conscience are essential in life and, in our current society [perhaps perpetually in all societies?] to ask questions and to try to deal ethically is difficult and perhaps impossible.