Religious Diversity in the Public Sphere: The Canadian Case

Abstract

This paper analyzes the contours of religious and nonreligious diversity in the Canadian public sphere. The ever-changing (non)religious landscape offers an opportunity to consider the flow of ideas from this new diversity to responses and choices at the individual, group, and state levels to inclusion and exclusion. The paper first begins with a descriptive approach to religious diversity, identifying the normatively-charged nature inherent to measures of religion. It then turns to the notion of choices, considering the somewhat uniquely Canadian contributions of multiculturalism, reasonable accommodation, and the recent complication of nonreligion as a category of religious identity. The paper then considers three case studies which reveal the tensions embedded in the new diversity and responses to it in Canada, including (1) the Saint-Sacrement Hospital crucifix incident; (2) Zunera Ishaq's challenge to the citizenship ceremony niqab ban; and (3) school controversies in Ontario's Peel Region.

And then there were none: Regional dynamics of non-religious identities, beliefs and practices among Canadian millennials

“…Unlike some scholars of secular transition theories who foresee the disappearance of all things religious and spiritual over the coming years, and unlike some scholars of SBNR theories who expect to find personal forms of spirituality among a majority of non-religious populations, the empirical reality, at least among young adults in Canada and at least as measured in this study, falls somewhere between the two. Religious nones in Canada are part of what Beaman (2017Beaman ( , 2018 refers to as the country's 'new diversity', along with greater religious pluralism brought with increased migration as well as with a greater public awareness and focus on Indigenous peoples and spiritualities. As efforts are made to develop better measures, both quantitively and qualitatively, to capture the lived realities of religious nones, we are better able to observe the internal pluralism within this broad category, with key divisions and distinctions especially between the SBNR, the involved non-religious (with secularist organizations and identities) and the indifferent non-religious.…”

Memorializing Aqsa Parvez: Public Feelings and Secular Multiculturalism

“…Challenges to national secular sovereign subjectivity on the terrain of cultural religious identities most often play out in the public sphere where the sharp separation between the religious and the secular is revealed in hierarchical relation. Lori Beaman (2017), in her analysis of the controversy over the removal and eventual reinstatement of the crucifix from the lobby of the Saint-Sacrement Hospital in Quebec City shows this hierarchical relation in the ensuing public debate and generation of public feeling, concluding that "despite the promise of multiculturalism, Christianity as the majoritarian religion still retains a position of privilege, albeit now under the guise of heritage and culture" 3 (9).…”

Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship: A Thereotical Debate

“…Multiculturalism, therefore, may have an important role in managing diversity in the public sphere. 28 A study by Beyer, however, found that, although approaches to multiculturalism are positive, practice is sometimes lacking. Canada is a good example of this.…”

“…The difference between liberal citizenship and multicultural citizenship, however, is that the former is based on the rights individuals have against the state, while the latter is supplemented by a horizontal relationship between citizens and the ethics of how we deal with each other as citizens 75 (the ethics of inclusion). 76 It means multicultural citizenship works on the Qur'anic principle of husn-i-akhlaq (good character).…”