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.
Our Secular Schools campaign calls for ending religious privilege in the BC education system.
Latest news
Posted on
News
· April 25, 2018
The BC Humanist Association is expressing concerns about comments by the Minister of Justice made following a petition by another Humanist group. In September 2017, Doug Thomas of Secular Connexion Séculière launched a parliamentary e-petition calling on the government to hold a parliamentary committee to investigate “systemic discrimination against non-believers...
Posted on
News
· February 01, 2018
The BC Humanist Association welcomes news that Canada's national anthem is now officially gender neutral.
The Senate passed bill C-210 yesterday, officially changing the line "in all thy sons command" to "in all of us command." The bill now awaits Royal Assent before becoming law.
Posted on
News
· January 15, 2018
The BC Humanist Association has launched a petition in support of new application requirements for the Government of Canada's Canada Summer Jobs program. The program provides wage subsidies to employers to hire high school and post-secondary students. The new policy requires applicants to attest that neither the job nor the...
Posted on
News
· December 04, 2017
On November 30 and December 1 the Supreme Court of Canada heard arguments over whether law societies must recognize evangelical Trinity Western University’s proposed law school. The BC Humanist Association was there. TWU's Community Covenant excludes sexual intimacy outside a heterosexual marriage. As such, the case has been framed as...
Posted on
Blog by Ian Bushfield
· December 04, 2017
On Thursday and Friday last week, the Supreme Court of Canada heard arguments in the cases surrounding evangelical Trinity Western University's proposed law school. We were there as an intervenor and live-tweeted the hearings.
If you missed those tweets, we've collected the highlights below.
Posted on
Blog by Ian Bushfield
· November 02, 2017
This morning, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed a freedom of religion case launched by the Ktunaxa Nation that sought to block development of a year-round ski resort in the East Kootenays. The Ktunaxa believe that Grizzly Bear Spirit inhabits Qat’muk, the Jumbo Mountain region where Glacier Resorts sought to...
Posted on
News
· September 11, 2017
The BC Humanist Association filed our arguments at the Supreme Court of Canada today in two cases over the proposed law school at Trinity Western University. In our factum, we argue that only individuals, and not organizations, should be able to claim to have religious rights. Canadian courts have repeatedly...
Posted on
News
· July 29, 2017
UPDATE (July 31, 2017): Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin has just released an order reversing Justice Wagner's initial decision and approved all group's applications to intervene at the Supreme Court of Canada in the Trinity Western University cases. She also extended the hearing to two days to accommodate the numerous groups. This...
Posted on
News
· July 25, 2017
Winston Blackmore and James Oler were found guilty yesterday of polygamy. The two are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Bountiful BC and have over thirty wives between them. Blackmore has welcomed the verdict, arguing it opens the opportunity for him to challenge the constitutionality...
Posted on
Blog by Ian Bushfield
· June 20, 2017
For over a decade, supporters of free expression have been calling for the repeal of section 296 of Canada’s Criminal Code. This section is colloquially called Canada’s blasphemy law as it prohibits “blasphemous libel”. While no one has been charged under the section in eighty years, it remains a symbol that theocratic...
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