Muslim students at McGill and the University of Montreal have been battling for prayer space, facing the contention of the schools that they are non-sectarian and not obliged to provide space for religious practices.  Besides, they say, the space is simply not available.  Students have complained to the Quebec Human Rights Commission, with the assistance of the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN).  Other universities have responded differently.

Most students do not require special religious arrangements to meet their needs.  Their religiosity is much like that of the general population.  However, not all institutions of higher learning have adopted the McGill approach.

“Any university worth its salt for the last 10 or 15 years has recognized the need to change to be more accommodating to the significant and growing diversity that all campuses are experiencing,” Joe MacDonald, student dean at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, told Ottawa Citizen reporter Shannon Proudfoot.  Saint Mary’s University in Nova Scotia and Mount Allison in New Brunswick give Muslim students use of the chapel.  But some universities are moving beyond accommodation to a pro-active inclusiveness.

Ottawa’s Carleton University uses a calendar of religious holidays for which adherents may be excused from attending class or taking tests.  Of course, such a calendar could be restrictive, as some holidays may be important for some adherents of a faith and less so for others.  There are saints’ days for Roman Catholics throughout the year, and Hindu celebrations vary widely from one part of India to another.  However, the spirit behind the calendar suggests that the intent is to be guiding rather than restrictive.

The University of Toronto has a new Multi-Faith Center, with a number of rooms for worship and meeting.  It has more than 20 affiliated chaplains and a foot-washing facility for Muslims.  Both Sunni and Ismaili services are held regularly.  Simon Fraser University in British Columbia is similarly inclusive.  It finds it challenging to schedule space for Muslim prayer due to the changing times of prayer resulting from the fact that the prayer time is related to the annual trajectory of the earth around the sun.    Yet, Simon Fraser sees the matter as a challenge, not a barrier. 

Iraqi MP visits Canada

Layla Alkafaji is back in Canada to visit her brothers.  She is an Iraqi M.P. with a trying personal history.  As a student, she refused to join Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party and soon after graduation as an engineer she was imprisoned and tortured.  In 1982, she was sentenced to life in prison for her stalwart refusal.

In 1991, after the first Gulf War, she and a number of other dissidents were released, and she managed with family help to make her way out of the country and eventually to Canada, where she was able to receive refugee status.  Alkafaji worked in high tech in Toronto and became a Canadian citizen.  However, after Hussein’s overthrow she felt the call to return to Iraq to serve the country, especially the women. 

Alkafaji sees an improvement in security in the country and is optimistic about the economy because of the soaring price of oil. 

From mosaic to melting pot?

Canada’s Heritage Department is beginning to shift its focus.  It had been promoting Canada as a cultural mosaic, in contrast to what has been described as America’s melting pot.  Of course, both terms are exaggerations.  Many second- and third-generation Canadians lose their ancestral language and many of their cultural ways.  In the same vein, some members of American cultural minorities manage to maintain theirs.  The Arab American News is living proof of that.

So what is the shift?  It is from the mosaic model to what it calls “integrative multiculturalism.” The shift is designed to combat Muslim extremism.  It is intended to move from stressing the celebration of differences and a need for accommodation, to a recognition of the importance of Canadian identity and of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.  This change in direction brings to mind the similar shift in policies in the Netherlands following the murder of Theo van Gogh, a filmmaker who was highly critical of Islam, by a young Muslim.

Heritage Canada has not undertaken or even proposed any specific programs to mark the shift, and the government has not announced any funding for the new direction.   

Quebec religion curriculum controversial

“I used to be an atheist but I had to give it up—no holidays.”  Many years ago, that was a one-liner on a television ad for a junk food called Joey Chip.  Well, Joey Chip didn’t only lose out on holidays.  He also didn’t manage to make it on the school curriculum in Quebec.

Religious instruction has been a sore point in the Quebec education system for years.  The usual practice was for schools to offer Catholic instruction in most schools and Protestant instruction in the rest.  More recently, parents were offered the choice of opting a child out, in which case the alternative was a program of ethics.

Over the years, opposition to this model has been growing, for several reasons.  First, the influence of the Catholic Church has suffered a serious decline in Quebec.  Second, immigration has brought more non-Christians to the province, especially in Montreal.  Third, the whole debate around “reasonable accommodation” has helped to raise the concern about recognition of diversity.

The government has responded to criticism of the tradition of sectarian religious instruction in schools by developing a new compulsory multi-year curriculum about religion and ethics.  It will give children an awareness of many religious traditions, with due consideration of the need to cover Roman Catholicism, the faith declared by 83% of Quebeckers in the last census.  That figure needs to be taken with a grain of salt, however, as being Catholic is at least as much cultural as spiritual in Quebec.  Catholic churches have been closing across the province because of non-participation and non-attendance. 

This new curriculum has raised the ire of some of the more devout Catholics, who complain that teaching children about other faiths will “confuse” them about their own.  They are especially bitter because the course is compulsory.

In Buddhist and Jain scriptures we find the story of the blind men and the elephant, in which the blind theologians argue over the nature of an elephant based on where they happen to grab—the trunk, a leg, the tail, a side, and so on.  Buddha compared them to people who argue about religion.  More on this in a moment.

First, a word about the religious composition of Canada and Quebec in the last census.

In Canada, 77% claimed one form or another of Christianity as their faith, compared to 90% in Quebec.  Second was “no religion,” 16% in Canada, 6% in Quebec.  Muslims were 2% and Jews 1% in both places.

Well, the “no religion” category, including atheists, agnostics, secular, etc., as noted, came in second.  Yet, radical scepticism of such sorts is not included in the Quebec curriculum.  It is the elephant in the room that Quebec blind men have chosen not to talk about at all.

Canadians possible victims

Reports from Pakistan say that two Arab Canadians may be among those killed in an attack by a U.S. drone aircraft on a suspected insurgent location in a remote tribal region in Pakistan.  At this time no other details are available.