Is Good Friday a discriminatory holiday? That was the question raised by the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) last fall when it published a discussion paper on religious intolerance.
In the paper, the commission suggested Good Friday and Christmas are not only “grounded in Canada’s history of colonialism” but are “an obvious example” of religious intolerance — being the “only Canadian statutory holidays linked to religious holy days.”
The result, the paper went on to say, is that while Christians are privileged by getting days off for their religious observances, non-Christians may experience intolerance or discrimination since they need “to request special accommodations to observe their holy days and other times of the year where their religion requires them to abstain from work.”
The paper sparked a furor in Quebec. In November, the National Assembly denounced it and voted unanimously in favour of a motion defending Christmas as something that has “been part of Quebec heritage for several generations.”
A day later, the House of Commons adopted a Bloc Québécois motion that also denounced the paper and invited “all Quebecers and Canadians to unite as we approach the Christmas season.”
In response, Charlotte-Anne Malischewski, interim chief of the CHRC, wrote on the Commission’s website: “To be clear, the Commission has not issued a statement or a position on Christmas or any other religious holiday.”
Christmas, she went on to say, “is an important and time-honoured tradition in Canada. It is both spiritually and culturally significant for millions of people in this country, Christians and non-Christians alike.”
The issue, Malischewski said, was not about the importance of Christmas and the commission wasn’t advocating for the country to drop it as a holiday. Instead, it was making sure people of other religions can be reasonably accommodated when they want time off to celebrate their special holy days.
The goal of the paper was to start a conversation about how everyone in Canada could “practice their religion with the same equality, dignity and respect as others,” Malischewski said.
Someone else raising questions about statutory holidays that celebrate only Christianity is Paige Thombs, an associate fellow at the University of Victoria’s Centre for Studies in Religion and Society.
Noting the large number of non-Christian immigrants coming to this country each year, along with the increasing number of Canadians who are dropping out of the Christian religion, Thombs said if this trajectory continues the holiday issue will be amplified.
One way to deal with it, she said, is for every Canadian to get a set number of days off to observe religious holidays. That way, everyone is on the same footing; Christians who want to go to church on Good Friday could ask for a day off, just like adherents of other religions do.
“This would mean removing statutory holidays that are based on Christian holidays,” she said, including Christmas, Good Friday and Easter Monday — which is a day off for federal government employees and some others.
That might not be welcomed by Canadians who don’t subscribe to any religion since they like time off. They might not “give a hoot about Good Friday, but they love that four-day weekend,” she said.
As for devout Christians, they could take vacation days to observe their religious holidays or churches could schedule services for the evening, as they do for Ash Wednesday or Maundy Thursday.
“I don’t really know what the right answer is,” Thomb said. “Getting rid of Good Friday will be cause for cheers for some and deeply disturbing for others.”
What she does know is that the next 10 years will likely see an increase in religious diversity in Canada, along with an increase in religious “nones” — those who don’t affiliate with any religious group.
“At the same time, a good chunk of Canadians will continue to identify with one of the many faiths present in Canada,” she said. “Trying to balance the needs of all of these groups will be a significant challenge; one to which, I hope, we can find a respectful solution.”
