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. Not just here in Vancouver but for our neighbours in America and for everyone across the world.
Today millions of us are declaring with one voice: No Tyrants. No Kings. We are saying that power belongs to the people.
Friends, we are witnessing in the current US administration a dangerous idea gaining ground. It is a movement that connects authoritarian political power to a narrow interpretation of one religious dogma, all fueled by white supremacy.
We call it White Christian Nationalism.
We see it written into Project 2025, the blueprint crafted to reshape the America around a so-called “biblical worldview.” Its architects want to roll back progress of 2SLGBTQ equality, racial justice, reproductive rights, and secular governance. Simply put, if you’re not a straight white Christian man, you don’t have a place in their worldview.
They’ve already turned the Supreme Court of the US into a battlefield for this ideology. Recent decisions have eviscerated reproductive autonomy, opened the door to prayer in public schools and demolished anti-discrimination laws, all under a false understanding of ‘religious freedom’.
These rulings have completely dismantled the wall between church and state.
Meanwhile, state legislatures are forcing religion into classrooms — mandating Ten Commandments posters, hiring chaplains instead of counsellors and using voucher programs to siphon public funds into church-run schools.
And on January 6 we saw the violent culmination of this ideology: crosses and “Jesus Saves” banners flying beside Confederate flags in an assault on democracy itself.
But we can’t look south and be complacent here in Canada. These forces are already active in our politics, from local school boards to the House of Commons.
Religious nationalists are leading the attacks on SOGI education and on trans rights — just this past month, we saw a bill tabled in the B.C. legislature that would have restricted inclusive gender-affirming care.
Across Canada, there are continued campaigns to restrict personal bodily autonomy, particularly targeting the right to abortion and medical assistance in dying. These efforts rely on fear and disinformation because they know most Canadians reject their narrow morality.
Religious privilege is stealthier like that in Canada. It doesn’t always shout, it often whispers. Whether behind the closed doors of leadership prayer breakfasts where religious billionaires influence our politics or in the lobbying by religious institutions who want to continue to evade accountability for their role in residential schools and clergy abuse scandals.
In Canada, this means we exist against a background of Christian hegemony.
It’s why three provinces still fully fund Catholic school boards – boards which often bus students to anti-abortion rallies or refuse to fly pride flags – and other provinces, including BC, partially fund religious private schools. All of this while teachers in our secular public classrooms struggle with too many students and too few resources to provide the education every child deserves.
It’s why we still see the House of Commons, Senate, most legislatures and too many municipal council meetings open with prayers that exclude the nonreligious and anyone who believes in the government’s duty of religious neutrality.
And it’s why we see public bodies like health authorities and housing agencies continue to partner with faith-based organizations that push their dogma and discriminate in their provision. This province is literally spending billions to build the new St Paul’s Hospital that will be run by Bishops who won’t let doctors working there prescribe contraceptives or perform abortions.
But today I’m here with the BC Humanist Association, and we know there is another way.
Real freedom of religion means freedom from coercion. It means the freedom for everyone to live by their conscience and to believe or not believe whatever they want. That freedom is not absolute; it must be balanced against all our other rights. Religious freedom is not a license to discriminate.
That’s why we oppose laws like Quebec’s Bill 21, which punishes people for expressing their beliefs under a false banner of neutrality. It’s why we stand with Indigenous peoples whose spiritual practices are still too often restricted or dismissed.
Because true secularism doesn’t silence belief — it protects it.
Humanists are here today and standing with No Kings rallies across the continent because we believe in equality. We believe in diversity. We believe in democracy. And we believe that by working together we can use reason and compassion to solve the world’s problems peacefully.
Our neighbours in the U.S. are fighting an open theocratic threat. Here, we face a subtler version — but the principle is the same. Democracy isn’t defended by silence; it’s defended by solidarity.
So we show up. We speak out. We build communities grounded in empathy and truth, not fear and dogma.
We don’t need gods or kings to tell us how to live, or who we can love. We are free people, standing on equal ground, building a world guided by reason, compassion, and hope.
The future doesn’t belong to tyrants. It belongs to us — the people who care enough to make it better.