September 5, 2023

Abstract

Since the adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, courts have repeatedly deemed the practice of including prayer and religious education public schools in Canada to be an unconstitutional infringement of students’ freedom of religion. Nevertheless, there continue to be news reports of religious practices in Canadian public schools. To understand the legislative context for these reports, we set out to survey the legislation that governs the public education systems of every province and territory.

We identified that the school acts and regulations in five provinces, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador, still permit sectarian religious exercises in schools, such as recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. Among these, Manitoba’s provisions were struck down by the courts over 30 years ago. Newfoundland and Labrador, whose denominational school systems were amalgamated in 1997, allows parents to request religious observances in schools. Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and the Northwest Territories also permit religious instruction to occur in public schools, though the latter two require it to be inclusive and not indoctrinating.

More encouragingly, British Columbia, Manitoba and New Brunswick require their school systems be “non-sectarian,” while Quebec has controversially issued guidance banning all religious expression in schools – including personal expressions by students and staff.

As Canada grows increasingly diverse, removing these vestiges of Christian supremacy is necessary to protect the multicultural nature of our society. We conclude by calling on those provinces we identified to repeal their existing provisions permitting religious exercises and for all provinces to enshrine the secular nature of public schools in law.

Table 1 - Comparison of religious exercises permitted under provincial and territorial school acts.

^a Manitoba’s provision of the Lord’s Prayer and bible readings were struck down by the courts but have not been removed from the Public Schools Act.
^b Newfoundland and Labrador allows parents or guardians to request a ‘religious observance’ in school.

Note: An initial version of this report did not include a reference to the regulations in New Brunswick that permit teachers to read from scriptures or deliver the Lord's Prayer.