Freedom of Religion in Canada - Education

Education

Canada's approach to religious education often faces concerns addressing to how to best balance competing concerns, e.g., anti-discrimination laws and religious freedoms, and respect rights to religious education outlined in important Canadian legal documents. In some provinces and territories, public funding for religious-based separate schools, either Roman Catholic or Protestant, is mandated by section 93 of the Constitution Act, 1867 and reaffirmed by Section Twenty-nine of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The United Nations Human Rights Commission declared in 1999 that Ontario was in violation of the international covenant on civil and political rights by only funding Catholic schools and not other faith-based schools. In 2007, Ontario voters were polled as being opposed to extending funding to other faith groups. Quebec was originally required by the Constitution to provide public funding for Roman Catholic and Protestant schools, but in 1997 Quebec obtained a constitutional amendment, with the consent of the National Assembly of Quebec, the House of Commons and Senate, ending its requirement to fund religious-based schools for Protestants and Roman Catholics. Quebec then abolished publicly funded religious education through the Education Act, 1998 which took effect on July 1 of that same year. Newfoundland similarly abolished the constitutional requirement for funding for religious-based separate schools in 1998, by a constitutional amendment enacted by the Newfoundland and Labrador Legislative Assembly, the House of Commons and the Senate. Prior to the amendment, Newfoundland and Labrador was required to fund separate schools run by a number of different religious groups.

In 2001, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Trinity Western University v. British Columbia College of Teachers that the British Columbia College of Teachers was wrong to withhold accreditation of Trinity Western University's teacher education program on the basis that the school's policy prohibited "homosexual behaviour".

In a highly publicized 2002 case, Justice Robert McKinnon granted an interlocutory injunction ordering that Marc Hall be allowed to bring a same-sex date to prom at his Oshawa, Ontario Catholic high school. The matter did not, however, proceed to trial, meaning no binding judgement on the merits of the case was issued.

In 2006, the Province of British Columbia moved to make changes that would require religious schools to teach LGBT-friendly educational material (see related article Peter and Murray Corren); however, the British Columbia government indicated that changes to the public education system were not intended to prevent religious schools from teaching their ethical codes of behaviour. Also in 2006, in Quebec, Christian evangelical schools are now being required to teach both evolution and sex education, a requirement that does not exist in some other provinces.