In light of a series of traumatic stories documenting patients forced to transfer from St Paul's Hospital and other religious healthcare facilities in BC to access a legal medically-assisted death, the BC Humanist Association is renewing calls for the province to end its agreement with sectarian health associations.

Trigger warning: Sexual assault

This month, shocking news about alleged sexual assault and cover-ups once again drew attention to inequalities and lack of accountability associated with addiction recovery programs in BC.

Given this unfortunate string of events, we are renewing our 2018 call to the Government of BC to ensure every patient seeking treatment for a substance use issue has access to secular, evidence-based treatment options, by:

NATIONAL – A new study of unlicensed pregnancy counselling centres across Canada finds that they often conceal an anti-abortion agenda and provide medical misinformation to pregnant clients.

Co-developed by the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC) and the BC Humanist Association (BCHA), the study reviewed websites of the nearly 150 so-called crisis pregnancy centres (CPCs) across Canada to identify the presence of misleading information, and compared the results to a similar 2016 study conducted by ARCC to better understand changes over time.

A campaign claiming to speak for "the most vulnerable" has spent tens of thousands of dollars on Facebook ads in the past three months and is being funded by a group of anti-choice healthcare professionals, according to a new analysis by the BC Humanist Association.

On Monday, January 23, Saanich council will debate a motion calling on the province to eliminate the statutory exemptions for places of worship.

The motion, "transition all statutory tax exemptions for places of worship to permissive tax exemptions," is being brought by Councillor Teale Phelps Bondaroff and would direct the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) to lobby the province for the change.

In its response to the Ministry of Finance's pre-Budget 2023 consultation, the BC Humanist Association is again asking the government to recognize its duty of religious neutrality and end special privileges for religious organizations.

The BCHA previously made these calls to the House of Commons' Finance Committee.

By Prof. Abby Day (Goldsmiths, University of London); Visiting Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of Religion and Society, University of Victoria.

Many members of the BC Humanists generously responded to my request in the summer of 2020 to help with interviews for my latest research project on Baby Boomers and religion. Baby Boomers, born post-WWII and defining the 1960s’ cultural revolutions, were the last generation to be routinely baptised, confirmed and taken regularly to mainstream, Anglican/Episcopalian churches. Their parents raised them to be church-attending, and yet questioning semi-conformists, enabling them to become ex-religious and to raise the Millennials to be the least religious generation ever.

At its December 13, 2022 meeting, the Board of Directors of the BC Humanist Association endorsed the BC Climate Emergency Campaign's 10 Actions to Confront the Climate Emergency.

Last week we published our latest report: Open for Unconstitutional Business, our detailed examination of prayers in Ontario municipalities. In it, we spent ten pages exploring the complexities raised by the growing prevalence of Indigenous territorial acknowledgements, welcoming ceremonies and even blessings at municipal council meetings. Our arguments built upon our past discussions of the issues—notably Decolonizing Legislative Prayers.

How fortuitous then that the BC Court of Appeal should release a significant judgement in the case of Servatius v Alberni School District No 70. This case dealt with Candice Servatius, an Evangelical Christian parent, who argued that Indigenous demonstrations at her children's school violated their religious freedom and the state duty of neutrality.

Français suit

Almost half of the municipalities in Ontario opened their 2018 inaugural meetings with a prayer, according to the latest report from the BC Humanist Association (BCHA). The report also fingers nine municipalities for including prayers or invocations in their regular council meetings.