Canadian separation of church and state

I'll admit I don't know a whole lot about Canadian politics but I was curious if our neighbors up north are having the same problem as we are concerning the "Not written in the Constitution doctrine of Separation between Church and State".

Activist courts have begun taking historically significant portions of American culture and banning them simply because they are religous, claiming there is a wall betwen church and state. Even though there is no such thing in the Constitution.

I noticed in the Canadian national anthem, "God" is used. In America this line would have been banned many many years ago. Has Canada seen the same backlash against religion as the US has seen by ultra liberals, the elite media, and activist courts?

Has Canada seen the same backlash against religion as the US has seen by ultra liberals, the elite media, and activist courts?

We have better issues to deal with then petty Theological issues.
The continued assault on the Canada Health Act, Increasing Working Poor and Homelesness, Urban centers all across canada are rapidly decaying. We need solid action on these issues. And when the Judge in our system comes across a case that will want to ban the word "god" in the anthem he'll probably just through it out cause its a waste of time and it really harms no one(even though It may bother a few Athiests, as an Athiest I have no problem with it). Although if we had a leader who like Bush wants to ammend the Constitution to Ban Gay marriage I would expect a HUGE backlash against that mythical future gov't.

And we have just punished the Liberals by giving them a very restricting Minority Gov't, but we thankfully weren't insane enough to give the Conservatives another chance. Especially with the recent memory of the Mike Harris/Earnie Eaves Gov't

These things can't be solved by Religious debate, and since 70% + are voting left these days since we have experienced a very damaging Conservative Gov't under Mulrony and very very briefly under Kim Campbell before she was tossed out by the voters and gave Cretien his first gov't.

So basically the people have chosen that Religion will play a small part in our Gov't. SO yes we do have Seperation of Church and State and I believe it has been enshrined in law(im only 90% sure though).

There is no "god" in everything...Except for god keep our land glorious and free" other then that it's all about the queen...
She's the head to which we "bow" so to speak because canada is a run off of England, she doesn't make our decisions she's just a figurehead.
YOu guys have more things that include god then we do.
There is nothing in the bill of rights that says anything about god.
Trudeau made em up in 84, I don't believe we even have a consitution... I'll go look but I don't think we do...

I'm sorry we do, i'm used to it being called the British North American Act...
But it's now called the constitution... go figure.

The founders of Canada were determined to create a strong central government while, at the same time, assigning substantive powers to provincial legislatures that would enable them to maintain their identity, culture and institutions. They gave the federal Parliament jurisdiction over defence and foreign policy, trade, transportation, communications and Indians and Indian lands. Parliament was also granted certain extraordinary powers, such as the broad authority "to make laws for the peace, order and good government of Canada," the right to disallow provincial legislation, and to declare local undertakings to be for the general advantage and thus to fall under federal jurisdiction (for example, the regulation of sales of alcohol or firearms).


They didn't write it under god or recognize him because it was british. and they were all about the queen...

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of Great Britain was the court of final appeal for Canada until 1949 when full authority was transferred to the Supreme Court of Canada. It rendered some 120 decisions on the distribution of legislative powers

more
www.canadianembassy.org...

The Bill of rights is about 35 years old now, TrueLies, and Canada does have a Constitution. If you're Canadian, you should know this.

A few years ago there was some bullsh!t about God being present in the national anthem, but I think it was quickly forgotten about. Then someone had a problem with
" True patriot love in all thy sons command." in the anthem.. It's sexist and all.

Well apparantly there was a bit of a tiff over god in the consitution

looky here www.lifesite.net...

I guess it didn't get enough media coverage like the American tiff...

YOu guys also hae 220+ million people and canada only have 38 million, it would probably be a bigger deal to you guys aswell since you had founding fathers who obviously came rfom British rule where you had to subject yourselves to the kind instead of being allowed to honour god...

We never had anything like that.

Also it says right in the beginning of the charter of rights and freedoms:

Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:

there ya go... if you want to look at it it's very similar to Americans it here:

laws.justice.gc.ca...

[edit on 23-7-2004 by TrueLies]

CAVEAT: I am not an expert on the legal jurisprudence pertaining to religion in Canada.

What I do know from memory:

The British North America Act was enacted by Britain in 1867 as the founding Constitution of Canada.

In 1982 the Constitution was re-patriated to Canada with the enactment of the Constitution Act. This Act included the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (TrueLies gave a link) to augment/replace the Bill of Rights.

I believe that this Act also removed the legal possibility that the Parliament/British House of Lords could repeal the British North America Act and essentially "undo" Canada.

It also made the Canadian Supreme Court the highest court of appeal. Prior to this, the House of Lords and Privy Council were an appeal venue of last resort. The Crown was kept as the "Head of State" and the role is largely ceremonial with a Governor General appointed by the Canadian Parliament to represent Canada (another largely figurehead/ceremonial position)

The Charter guarantees Freedom of Religion. There is some jurisprudence and legal argument (sorry no links) that freedom of religion includes freedom FROM religion. I would have to do some real digging to figure out if there is actual wording stating an official separation of church and state. I suspect the assignment of jurisdictions and responsibilities contained in the Constitution Act as well as precedent in case law are constructed in such a way as to make this effective.

However, I refer to to Sardion's excellent post about how this plays out in everyday life in Canada.