Gilles Duceppe comes swinging at a Conservative candidate’s religious beliefs. Didn’t the Bloc have a MP who was also a Catholic priest until last week? Or does he mean that religious beliefs are only acceptable when they coincide with his party’s platform?
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Just out of curiosity exactly what Conservative candidate’s religious beliefs did Gilles Duceppe come out swinging about?
Having said that nowhere in Canadian Constitutional law does it ever say anything about Separation of Church and State. If anything the Charter of Rights invokes our belief in God as a nation that in fact is to be protected.
The entire concept of separation of Church and State has never existed in Canadian Constitutional Law but it hasn’t stopped the mass media and politicians at most levels of government to continue to eccho and exploit this nonexistant phrase over and over again.
Where does this separation of Church and State appear written in law in either the British North America Act of 1867 or even former Prime Minister Trudeau’s failed attempt to repatriate the Constitution in 1982 with all 10 Canadian Provinces? It doesn’t appear written into law because it doesn’t exist in any Constitutional Law agreement ever written in Canada. If everyone recalls Quebec one of Canada’s Founding 4 regions at the time did not sign on and still has not signed on to that 1982 Repatriation of the Constitution.
The Province of Quebec did not ever sign on to the this repatriation and still has not. The Fathers of Confederation under the leadership of Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister had all four then regions including Lower Canada or Quebec as it is now known sign on to forming Canada in 1867. The Fathers of Confederation in 1867 got it right the first time.
Hopefully what ever political leader and party forms the next government of Canada on October 14, 2008, gets it right this time for Canada’s sake and the sake of the future well being of Canadians from coast to coast to coast.
Our politicians keep forgetting where and why “separation of church and state” originated. First of all, the idea of “separation of church and state” is NOT a law. It is NOT written into our Constitution or Charter. It isn’t even a Canadian “idea”. It is, in fact, an artifact that Canadians have merely and unofficially adopted from our American cousins (it doesn’t appear in their Constitution either, by the way.)
Thomas Jefferson, a devout and deeply religious man, wrote a letter in 1802 where he proposed this famous separation. His primary concern was NOT to protect the government from the church. Rather, he included these words to *specifically* protect the church from government interference!
So, Mr. Duceppe — kindly stop complaining or interfering with the religious convictions of any person, member of government or not! That area, historically and correctly, is hands off.