The British Columbia Humanist Association supports a secular society that affirms:
- the right of every individual to practice any religion or none, free from coercion by the government, private institutions or their community and
- that the state has a duty of religious neutrality, meaning it must neither endorse nor prohibit any belief or non-belief.
Open secularism is the best way to fully guarantee the freedom of religion and conscience of all citizens in a plural society. Secularism is the principle that the government should not privilege or disadvantage any religious or non-religious belief over any other.
We oppose government funding being given preferentially to religious organizations and tax exemptions that only benefit the religious (for example, permissive exemptions for houses of worship or the Clergy Residence Deduction). We call on the federal government to remove "the supremacy of God" from the preamble of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and to create a secular national anthem.
Latest news
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News
· January 12, 2026
Lawyers have begun presenting arguments at the BC Supreme Court in a trial that could determine the future of faith-based hospitals in the province.
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News
· December 18, 2025
Parents across Alberta are calling on Minister of Education and Childcare, Demetrios Nicolaides, to retract and apologize for a holiday letter that promoted Christian religious doctrine using an official government platform.
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· November 26, 2025
Humanists are celebrating the passage of Bill 40 in Manitoba, which removes mandatory prayers from the province's Public Schools Act.
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Blog by Ian Bushfield
· October 20, 2025
The following was the script for my remarks to Vancouver's No Tyrants rally on October 18, 2026. My actual speech varied slightly as I went off script at a few points. Friends, thank you for being here today — for standing up for democracy, for equality, and for one another....
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Blog by Ian Bushfield
· October 07, 2025
Yesterday, politicians returned to the Legislative Assembly of BC. One of their first orders of business was a motion to condemn the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA).
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Blog by Ian Bushfield
· September 26, 2025
In the summer, the BC legislature's finance committee published its report on the Budget 2026 consultations. As an organization dedicated to promoting progressive and secular values, we participated in these consultations to ensure the voices of the 52% of British Columbians who are humanist or non-religious were heard. Our advocacy...
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· September 15, 2025
Vancouver, BC – A new report from the BC Humanist Association (BCHA), The Island Anomaly, reveals Prince Edward Island (PEI) as the most compliant province studied to date in adhering to the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2015 Saguenay ruling. The comprehensive study found only one instance of unconstitutional prayer in PEI...
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· July 31, 2025
In its submissions today to the federal finance committee and department, the BC Humanist Association has asked MPs on the committee to reaffirm their recommendation that the government use the next federal budget to remove the privileged status of religion as a charitable purpose.
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Blog by Ian Bushfield
· July 25, 2025
On Tuesday afternoon, I joined a couple dozen other secularists outside Kelowna City Hall to call on the City to revisit its religious property tax exemption handouts.
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News
· July 25, 2025
The BC Humanist Association and Canadian Secular Alliance are headed back to the Supreme Court of Canada to argue for the importance of an inclusive interpretation of the state's duty of religious neutrality.
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