An American Humanist once asked me what it is like to live as a Humanist in Canada. He looked wistful as I said that the experience is usually positive and that people’s reaction to learning that I am an Agnostic Humanist is usually polite, although sometimes surprised. Yes, there are altercations between Canadian Humanists and believers and, in at least one case recently, such an altercation turned violent. However, for the most part, we just go along without any ruffles in our lives.

But, and a sizable but at that, this may be simply a result of our lack of energy in defending our rights. Every day, non-believers in this country are confronted with persistent institutions that are contrary to the spirit and letter of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and do nothing about it.

That Charter came into effect in 1982 as a part of the Constitution Act of the same year. Both of them were passed by our Parliament as part of the process of patriating the British North America Act, the British law that, in 1867, created Canada as we know it. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees:

a) freedom of conscience and religion;

b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.

After 1982, the Supreme Court of Canada expressed the opinion that these clauses defend the right to freedom from religion as well as the right to freedom of religion.

While this right may be legally in place, few Canadians seem aware of it. Our public institutions continue to exhibit theist qualities. Many of our government institutions and even fundamental government structures are full of religious influences, left over from our history, but continued as a matter of course in our daily lives.

Our head of state, the Queen of Canada, is also the head of the Church of England (and the Queen of England among other countries). How does this provide any separation of Church and State? Her likeness is stamped on every Canadian coin and is surrounded by the (albeit arcane Latin) words “Elizabeth II D [ei] G [ratia] Regina.” No, folks, our coins are not minted in Regina, Saskatchewan, but in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The phrase means – hold onto your happy humans – “Elizabeth II, Queen by the Grace of God.”

Now, I know that most of us do not stare in disgust at our coins as we hand them over in our ubiquitous Tim Horton’s coffee shops, nor do we attempt to file off the offending words (an illegal practice, by the way, dating from the time that coins were made of precious metals). However, each coin is a little testament to the latent theism in our Government circles.

As harmless and quaint as this connection between our head of state and a church may seem, it should not be overlooked. The separation of church and state must go all the way to the top. Prince Charles has suggested that if he becomes king, he will renounce his position as head of the Church of England. This would certainly solve the problem and I should think that if he does not do that, we should not accept him as the King of Canada. I have begun to think we should take steps to begin electing our Governor General (the representative of the reigning monarch) in preparation for such a republican possibility.

We happen to have one of the most elegant and "singable" national anthems on the planet, “O Canada.” It can survive almost any kind of instrumentation and still bring us to our feet in celebration. I still cherish the envious looks on the faces of the latest American women’s Olympic hockey team when the Canadians in the crowd at the gold medal ceremony sang the words loud enough to compete with the music. At the same time I shuddered at the words, “God keep our land glorious and free.” If they had sung the French version my shuddering could have been even worse. Literally translated it is replete with phrases such as, “Your arm knows how to wield the sword and how to carry the cross,” and “your valour is imbued with faith.”

I have had a connection with our national anthem for some time. When I was in university, movie theatres played “God Save the Queen” before each movie. Upset with the theist content of that anthem, I allied with other rebellious Canadian nationalist students to begin a protest that eventually led to the theatres changing to “O Canada”. The theist words that became our official national anthem were still in the future – a product of a devout, Roman Catholic Prime Minister named Pierre Elliot Trudeau.

Every morning, public schools in Ontario open the day by playing “O Canada” and by observing a moment of silent meditation. We have succeeded in having prayers removed from this official ceremony. Playing O Canada presents no problem when an instrumental version is played, but is offensive to non-believers when a vocal version with the official, but theist words included, is played. Delegations to local school boards will soon request that instrumental versions only be played until the federal government corrects the words of the official anthem. A perfectly good non-theist version exists in English and I know some people are working on a francophone version.

Just as we refused to stand for the British national anthem as part of our movie-going ritual, we should exercise our rights to remove the theism from our national anthem. Ultimately, unless a sudden wave of sense sweeps through the House of Commons, we will likely have to have the law that makes our national anthem official declared ultra vires by the Supreme Court.

The theism of the Canadian House of Commons can get very serious. Just ask former New Democratic Party MP, Svenn Robinson. He was a member of the committee that worked on the wording of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms – until he had the gall to suggest that the preamble that says, “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law.” was too theist and contradicted the spirit and the letter of the document. Once he said that, he was unceremoniously dumped from the committee and his political demise almost certainly started then.

You see, we Canadian non-believers are accepted until we actually stand up for our rights. A few years ago, I actually had a Lutheran minister tell me that Agnostics were far too outspoken. He was unable to quote anyone specifically at the time, which leads me to think that any vocalization from us Agnostics was too much. We are tolerated as long as we stand quietly while religion is foisted upon us, but quickly become targets if we object.

In other circumstances, we are expected just to join in with the only option available or not participate at all. November 11 presents a dilemma for some of us. Either we can stay away from Remembrance Day ceremonies and forget about officially remembering the wartime sacrifices of our fellow Canadians, or we can participate publicly in a theist ceremony. Many of us are beginning to hold our noses and participate. Should we not propose another ceremony that is specifically for non-believers? I wonder what official reaction to that would be?

The situation is more critical with the attitude of the Conservative government of Stephen Harper. Recently, any criticism of Conservative policies, which include favouring theism, has resulted in accusations of being un-Canadian. This is overlaid on the general attitude of Parliament that Canada is and should remain a Christian state. There is a prayer room on Parliament Hill and a New Democratic Party MP recently proposed a “faith caucus” in Ottawa.

In Ontario, we had to speak out against the designation of a room as a “prayer room” at Queen’s Park. The idea was put forward by New Democratic Party MLA, Cheri Di Novo, and received at least nominal support from the Speaker of the Legislature and the Liberal Premier, Dalton McGuinty. When confronted by non-believers, Di Novo claimed that the room would provide a space for all faiths to practise prayer and meditation and a space for Atheists to “chill out”. I think the variations of diplomacy surrounding the room would be very interesting. What would a Christian MLA do if he found the room occupied by a non-believer already there “chilling out”. By the way, do any of our officiants have a copy of the order of service for “chilling out” that I could borrow?

I recently had to invoke the shadow of the Ontario Human Rights Commission to get an invocation removed from the commencement of the high school at which I teach after the administration essentially stonewalled my request to have it removed. Once I pointed out in writing that I had the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms on my side and that the Ontario Human Rights Commission agreed, the invocation was quickly and quietly dropped.

A large part of our problem, of course, is that none of these things is life-threatening nor do any cause any loss of income or apparent loss of human dignity. Invisible minorities receive far less attention than visible ones in Canada. As a result, gaining the support of our fellow non-believers proves difficult. Membership in Humanist organizations is very low. With approximately 3.2 million non-believers in Canada (based on a 10-per-cent estimate from the census of 2001), the registered members in Humanist or similar organizations number but a few thousand. I sometimes envy the pressures felt by American non-believers who feel more sharply the need to join up.

In addition, changing these things will take a long time. This will probably be a matter of commitment for more than one generation of Humanists. However, if we stand up reasonably and firmly, we can change the default position that religious practices are the norm. If we are to really live freely as Canadian Humanists, we have a great deal of work to do.

Doug Thomas is a Canadian Agnostic Humanist. He is a published novelist, columnist for Humanist Network News, (Institute for Humanists Studies, Albany NY) and Managing Editor of Canadian Freethinker. He is also on the Society of Ontario Freethinkers Executive and active in the Green Party of Canada.