Looking back on this past year, we're seeing the dividends paid out for the investments the members of the Humanist community have been making for the past few years.
So, while it feels cliché to say that 2023 was been a significant year for us, it's still likely true, given what we've been building together.
In particular:
- With the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, we released a report exposing the deceptive practices deployed on the websites of so-called "crisis pregnancy centres."
- We released a report identifying three provinces still permitting prayers in their public school acts.
- We went to court to argue that religious organizations shouldn't be exempt from the province's privacy law.
- We published our End of Life eBook, which provides valuable resources to everyone considering their (or a loved one's) mortality.
- We drew attention to growing controversies around religious property tax exemptions on our blog and our TikTok channel has seen significant growth this year.
- We updated our Legislative Prayer Across Canada report.
- And we spoke out on the toxic drug crisis, made a major donation to Rainbow Refugee, called for an end to government grants for anti-choice groups, welcomed a new spiritual reflection policy for military chaplains (while challenging a temporary pause on its implementation), opposed the institutional objections of religious healthcare facilities and called for an end to religious exemptions to the hate speech law.
Most prominently, though, we earned many headlines for our report on prayers at seven inaugural council meetings across British Columbia. Our advocacy has since led four of those communities to commit to ending or reviewing the practice before the next elections.
We still need to get commitments from three more communities to ensure all future city council meetings in the province are secular and inclusive.
Beyond that, there's a lot more we want to do next year and beyond. I'll save that for my next blog, though.
For now, thank you to everyone who's helped build this movement. And if you haven't yet, please support our year-end fundraising campaign.