Preface and Summary Throughout history the relationship between the state and the family and the role and duties assigned to each has been much debated. Some have seen the family as a servant of the state while others have seen the state's role as essentially to provide families with the security they need to do their work as the primary unit for raising children as future citizens. In his book, The Socialist Phenomenon (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), Igor Shafarevich, once a professor of mathematics at Moscow University, catalogued the historic tendencies of a certain type of utopian socialism which sought a perfected or utopian state it believed could be achieved if only society was restructured in certain ways. Shafarevich traced this type of socialism through antiquity, the heresies of the Middle Ages and the Reformation, the utopian writings of philosophers such as More and Campanella, the state socialism of the Inca Empire, the 18th Century Jesuit state in Paraguay and the ancient Orient. Over this wide expanse of time and place, Shafarevich noted three trajectories common to utopian restructuring: the abolition of private property, the abolition of religion and the abolition of the family. One does not need to become paranoid in order to notice that in Canada today these three institutions are, in fact, under considerable strain. Particularly with respect to the family, there are signs that it is once again time to renew the discussion about the proper role of the family in a free and democratic society. There is always a tension between the state and the parts that make it up. The state and its institutions must always be careful to facilitate the function of the family without usurping its proper role. The state has a role to play in ensuring that the lives of children are not threatened by neglect or abuse but must be careful not to tread on the independence of the family. The state exists, so the principle of subsidiarity tells us, to facilitate and assist the smaller units, not to occupy their proper "space" in society. In past decades, ideological camps have arisen which have called, on occasion, for the abolition of any demarcation between the family and the state. This idea, as old as Plato, threatens the notion that the family is, and ought to be, the first "school of virtue" for citizens. Unfortunately, as virtue itself has slowly evaporated from consciousness (a result of its gradual disappearance from formal education itself), the family's role in the teaching and propagation of a coherent understanding of virtue and character has also become misty. When key aspects of social life cease to be argued for, debated and taught, it is only a question of time before they become threatened by acts of commission or by neglect. There is growing evidence that this tension between the state and family may be in need of examination and correction at this time. Such correction will involve, as part of its task, the re-articulation of the family, its nature and its proper place in civil society. If this task of description or re-membering does not occur, there is a risk that those who seek deliberately to weaken the family will triumph, not because their arguments are better but because the rest have lost any sense of what the family's proper role and duties are and how to argue for them. But, prior to any proper prescription, one must first be convinced that the diagnosis is sound. In this paper Vancouver lawyer Cindy Silver, who has followed developments in this area for some years, has chosen to examine the effects of recent development in national and international law that touch on the issue of "family autonomy". She notes the importance of seeking "the best interests of the child" in certain circumstances but sounds a note of warning lest the ambit of such inquiries extend beyond those where the lives of children are actually at stake. It is not the state's place, for example, to make determinations about the religious education a child gets from its family nor should a family's religious beliefs be a relevant factor in "child apprehension" cases. It will come as a considerable shock to some people to realize that just this sort of inquiry has occurred in Canada in recent years. We do not need to subscribe to the view that the family is under threat of imminent abolition in Canada in order to decide that it is time to start asking some hard questions. First amongst these are questions that relate to how we are to protect family autonomy in a society that is given over more and more to forms of state control and state regulation that allow less and less scope for the exercise of meaningful family autonomy. It is useful to reflect, for example, on whether parents in Canada at the present time have an effective choice about the type of curriculum their children are going to be taught from in systems supported by their own tax dollars. How accountable is the public school system and what can be done to make it effectively accountable? While these questions are not dealt with in this paper, they arise when its central theme is considered more broadly. Effective family autonomy is not something we can take for granted even within existing institutions in Canada and, as Silver shows in her paper, there is now a sufficient basis in documented cases for politicians and policy makers to take positive steps to ensure that valid concerns about the welfare of children are not used in ways which inject the state and the courts into areas they have no proper place to enter. Considerable work will be necessary in the future if we are to discover what aspects of civil society need to be strengthened so that families will have the resources they need. It is hoped that by showing some key recent developments that touch on the place of family autonomy in Canadian society, this paper will contribute to a broader discussion of the issues so that the state and the family can begin to occupy their proper places.Family Autonomy and the Charter of Rights: Protecting Parental Liberty in a Child-Centered Legal System Recognition of due process and the retained rights of parents promotes values essential to the preservation of human freedom and dignity and to the perpetuation of our democratic society. The family is the principal conservator and transmitter of cherished values and traditions. Any invasion of the sanctity of the family, even for the loftiest motives, unavoidably threatens those traditions and values. Family autonomy helps to assure the diversity characteristic of a free society. There is no surer way to preserve pluralism than to allow parents maximum latitude in rearing their own children. Conversely, there is no surer way to threaten pluralism than to terminate the rights of parents who contradict officially approved values imposed by reformers empowered to determine what is in the 'best interests of the child."1 Canadians live in a world where post-modern human rights are now a driving force, challenging the philosophical and legal traditions on which our social institutions are based.2 This is nowhere so evident as in the radical restructuring of the roles and relationships of the family and the state, while the state takes an evermore active role in protecting child rights as defined under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.3 This paper discusses the impact on the family of state attempts to both define and protect "the best interests of the child." In particular, it brings to light internal contradictions in child-rights jurisprudence, particularly when the state's power collides with the parent's right to liberty under Section 7 of the Charter of Rights. This paper discusses recent ideological and legal developments that challenge the a priori right of parents to nurture, maintain and educate their children free from undue interference of the state. It reviews the macro-social, philosophical and legal traditions that underlie Canada's long- standing policy of respecting the autonomous nature of the nuclear family. It examines changes in federal and provincial policies as a result of Canada's commitment to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the plan for which is contained in Brighter Futures: Canada's Action Plan for Children.4 It discusses the role that non-governmental organizations (N.G.O.s) currently play in initiating policy changes and how this might be affected by a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision that places parental rights squarely within Section 7 of the Charter of Rights.Deconstructing the Family, Promoting the Child As Canadian law and policy moves from an implicitly Christian framework to an explicitly secular one, the conceptual roles and legal rights of family members are being redefined. The once implicit right of parents to raise their children free from the undue intervention of the state has become obscured, while the individual rights of children have become a primary focus. Before the Charter, family autonomy and parental rights enjoyed a quasiconstitutional legitimacy. This was derived primarily from the Canadian Bill of Rights, the preamble of which states: The Parliament of Canada affirming that the Canadian Nation is founded upon principles that acknowledge the supremacy of God, the dignity and worth of the human person and the position of the family in a society of free men and free institutions.Affirming also that men and institutions remain free only when freedom is founded upon respect for social and spiritual values and the rule of law.As a constitutional document, the Charter of Rights is now primary in determining human-rights issues and, in practical application, prevails over the Canadian Bill of Rights. The Charter's preamble, now the definitive purpose statement for the protection of human rights in Canada, is much shorter and has deleted references to the family: "Whereas Canada is founded upon the principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law." By deleting express reference to the family, the Charter of Rights removed from plain view the grounds for constitutional protection of parental and family rights. This omission has contributed significantly to the demise of family autonomy and the devaluing of the family in law and legislation. Although the Charter failed to mention the family, it did specify age as a prohibited ground for discrimination within Section 15(1), a characteristic not mentioned in the anti-discrimination provisions of the Canadian Bill of Rights. Section 15(1) states: Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.The inclusion of age as a prohibited ground for discrimination effectively changed the constitutional status of children to one of prima facie equality with adults. Although age-based challenges have proved unlikely to succeed, the fact remains that any legislation that distinguishes children from adults based on age is vulnerable to challenge under Section 15 (1). Even as the Charter was being developed and implemented in Canada, there was a growing sense elsewhere that the rights of children were being ignored. Initially there was concern than, at the very least, children should be guaranteed protective rights, including the right to proper nutrition, basic medical care, hygiene and literacy, and the right to be protected from child labor, child prostitution, and the atrocities of war. Then, as child-rights theory became more sophisticated, human-rights groups included their concern that there was an 'epidemic' of family violence, including child abuse, in the developed world.5 Child-rights advocates argued that abuse within the family was rooted in and perpetuated by the hierarchical authority structure of the traditional family and by the veil of privacy that discouraged government intervention in family matters. The solution, they believed, was for the state to shift the balance of power in the parent-child relationship through policies that would define and limit the power of the parent while increasing the power of child. This would necessarily include changing the legal status of the child from an integral part of the family unit to an individual rights-possessor, and then conferring on the child explicit decision-making choice rights. In 1979, the United Nations (U.N.) proclaimed the International Year of the Child, an event that set in motion a ten-year process that culminated in the drafting of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The final document reflects an attempt to address all of the concerns raised by childrights groups. As a result, the U.N. Convention confers both protective rights, and choice rights, thereby establishing a presumption that children should be able to act autonomously whenever possible. The Convention, which Canada ratified in December, 1991, includes the following choice rights:6Article 13—the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds...whether orally or in writing, in the form of art...or through any other media of the child's choice. Article 14—the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. Article 15—the right to freedom of association. Article 16—the right to privacy. Article 19—the right to be free from all forms of physical and mental violence.7The U.N. Convention and the Charter of Rights have become powerful companions for defining the scope of child-rights. Together, these documents function as the reference point for the development of child-rights law in Canada. Both documents emphasize the state's role in protecting the autonomy of the individual against the institutions of society. In functional terms, this has recast the state and its courts as child-advocate against parents. In a recent article, Iain Benson, Executive Director of the Centre for Cultural Renewal, discusses the theoretical and functional chaos that is being created as our society attempts to separate the technique of the academic disciplines from a shared understanding as to their purpose within the social good.8 Recent developments in child-rights law illustrate the problem Benson describes. The technique, or theory, that defines child rights has expanded and become more sophisticated, while a shared understanding as to the purpose of child rights as components of the social good has become increasingly narrow. This separation of technique and purpose largely explains the present confusion as to the goals of child-rights law reform, not only among academics but among the offices of government and the courts. Having severed the connection between its technique and its purpose, child-rights theory, policy and law are in chaos; our society is trying to define child rights without clear reference to family autonomy or parental rights, and without deference to the best interests of society. This is a no-win situation, analogous to placing children in a speeding vehicle on an unmarked road with no clear destination.Constitutional Challenges and the Role of N.G.O.s A brief review of a few recent cases best illustrates the present chaos in childrights law reform. In May 1995, in the case of R. v. Carmen M., the Ontario Court of Appeal struck down Section 159 of the Criminal Code after the defendant argued successfully that this section violated Section 15(1) of the Charter of Rights.9 In this case, the defendant was charged under Section 159 for engaging in anal sex with a fourteen-year-old youth. Section 159 made it a criminal offense to engage in anal sex unless both parties consented and were at least 18 years-old or married. In contrast, the age of consent for heterosexual sex was 14 years. Focusing on the discrepancy in the law regarding the age of consent, the accused argued that this section violated the equality rights of youth to consent to anal sex after age 14. The Crown conceded that the age distinction created by Section 159 was discriminatory, but argued that the distinction was justified under Section 1 of the Charter. They argued that the section had a legitimate objective in protecting young persons from engaging in a specific form of sexual activity, anal intercourse, for which there were increased risks of physical and psychological problems, including the transmission of HIV. However, Madame Justice Russell, relying on the recent federal court decision in Halm v. Canada, struck down the law on the grounds that it discriminated on the basis of both age and sexual orientation.10 In Halm v Canada, Mr. Halm was denied immigrant status and faced extradition after authorities learned that he had recently failed to appear for sentencing after being convicted of ten sex offenses in New York State, including five counts of sodomy and three counts of endangering the welfare of a child.11 Halm appealed Canada's decision to deport him back to New York State for sentencing. He argued that Section 159, the Canadian equivalent of the charge for which he had been convicted, contained an age discrepancy that violated Section 15(1) of the Charter, therefore rendering the section unconstitutional and invalid. He argued that, in the absence of Section 159, the acts for which he was convicted would have been legal if they had occurred in Canada, therefore the immigration officials lacked the grounds necessary to deport him. In Halm v. Canada, Madame Justice Reed held that Section 159 violated the Charter on both the enumerated ground of age and the analogous ground of sexual orientation. Like Madame Justice Russell in Carmen M., she rejected the government's argument that the section served three legitimate objectives, reinforcing moral precepts, inhibiting youth from engaging in anal sexual activity and protecting youth from the increased risk of HIV transmission. In rejecting the first objective, Madame Justice Reed stated: I agree that there has always been a close connection between the Criminal Code and moral values. That does not mean, however, that today in our pluralistic society, moral values alone can justify making an activity criminal. If it could, one immediately has to ask, by whose moral values is the state to be guided? I am not persuaded that in a free and democratic society it is justifiable to make an activity criminal merely because a segment, indeed maybe a majority, of the citizenry consider it to be immoral.12Responding to the second and third legislative objectives, to discourage anal sex and prevent HIV transmission among youth, Madame Justice Reed stated: All of the evidence indicates that AIDS is spread by a number of activities (sharing needles among drug users, blood transfusions, both anal and vaginal sex). In absolute numbers, it would appear that anal sex is the least frequent method of transmission. It is not rational to make one such activity a criminal offense and not the others. Also, while unprotected anal sex may be riskier, as a potential conduit for HIV transmission than vaginal sex, in both cases it is unprotected sex which is the cause, not the activity itself.13In both Halm and Carmen M., the government did not appeal, notwithstanding the fact that a Quebec court facing the same issue that year upheld Section 159 in a well-reasoned judgement.14 Several child-rights groups, including a government-funded N.G.O. called Justice for Children and Youth, intervened in Carmen M. to strike down Section 159. The final ruling of the court was described by the intervenors as a victory for the right of youth to make sexual choices and to have equal legal access to all sexual activity. It is difficult to understand how this could be construed as a significant advance for children's rights as contemplated by early proponents of protective rights for children. However, the issue in this case was one of choice rights and was based on an unqualified concept of youth as individual rights-possessors. This accounts for the complete failure of the court to justify its decision in terms of the "best interests of the child," or to refer anywhere to the autonomy of the family or to the interests of parents in policy issues that could potentially effect their children. Justice for Children and Youth is one of several child-rights N.G.O.s presently playing a leading role in child-rights law reform in Canada. This is unsettling given that the ideology of many influential child-rights N.G.O.s is not only inordinately child-centered, but in many cases, antipathetic to established authority. The focus of these organizations is too often on defending the child against authority, whether exercised by social agents or parents. The activities of organizations such as Justice for Children and Youth illustrate the functional chaos that is resulting as the Canadian government funds and mobilizes N.G.O.s in order to promote child rights without a contextual framework that gives due weight to parental rights. Since 1992, the federal government has allocated $459 million toward conforming Canada's law and policy to the provisions of the U.N. Convention. Part of this amount was used in 1992 to create the Children's Bureau of Health Canada, whose mandate is to "ensure consistency and coordination for all federal programs and policies for children."15 From its inception, the Children's Bureau has worked with federal and provincial N.G.O.s to develop and implement Brighter Futures: Canada's Action Plan for Children, which is a massive effort "to work through all sectors of society—business, labor, communities, other governments, N.G.O.s, families and individuals—to improve the lives of children."16 Most state intervention in the parent-child relationship occurs at the provincial level. Provincial legislation empowers social workers to undertake measures that intrude on the autonomy of the family and the rights of the parents. For example, social workers are empowered to conduct inquiries and petition the court for a variety of orders with regard to a family under investigation. The court may give child protection authorities supervisory powers over the family, including unannounced "spot visits" to the family home, the power to interview children on demand or in the absence of a parent, and the power to require a suspect parent to attend one or more counseling programs. As well, the authorities may seek an order restraining a parent from being alone with the child, or having any direct contact with the child, or returning to the family home. It may make recommendations to the court regarding parental access to, and alternative placement of, the child. Finally, the child protection agency may seek an order for wardship of the child. The powers of government authorities in child protection proceedings are manifold compared to those of the parent. The state, with all of its personnel and money, is pitted directly against the parent. Yet the procedural safeguards are minimal. The cases indicate that even though protection authorities exercise quasi-judicial powers, the standard of proof in child protection proceedings is, at best, based on a balance of probabilities.17 Under provincial law, all that authorities require before initiating an intrusive investigation of a family is one complaint by an anonymous third party. Under provincial legislation, a child may be apprehended if the social worker decides they fit within the catch-all term a "child in need of protection". Although this term is well defined by the legislation, unclear procedural and evidentiary standards often mean that state interference in the family is based on assumptions rather than facts, leaving a disquieting margin for error.18 The powers of social workers might be necessary, but it is imperative that these powers expressly require not only justification and responsibility but procedural safeguards as well. The following cases illustrate the tragic impact this can have on a family. Until February, 1995, Charles and Sandra Butler home-schooled their children, ages eleven, eight and five.19 According to Newfoundland law, parents are allowed to home-educate their children as long as the curriculum they use is accredited by the district school board. The Butlers followed a home-school curriculum developed by the Seventh Day Adventist Church, one that the school board had refused to accredit. The family had no past history of neglect or abuse. In February 1995, the Department of Social Services decided that the Butler children were in need of protection as contemplated by the province's Child Welfare Act on the ground that the Butlers had neglected to provide adequately for the education of their children. However, within hours of apprehending the children, the Butlers realized that their five-year-old was not required by law to begin school until September; therefore, the grounds for apprehension could not rightly apply to her. Not wanting to release any of the children without further investigation, Social Services reapplied to the court to amend the application. Four days after the initial apprehension, Mr. Justice Handrigan granted Social Services four months temporary custody of the children based on an expanded list of grounds. These included, not only concerns about the education of the children, but also concerns about the children's health and medical care, the possibility of physical and / or mental abuse of the children and the religious zealotry and fervor of the parents. The Butlers retained counsel and appealed the order on several grounds: that the judge applied an improper standard of proof, that he relied on inadmissible evidence and hearsay, and that the hearing violated the principles of fundamental justice in that the appellants were unrepresented, were not properly informed of the nature of the hearing, and were not given an opportunity to call evidence.20 On appeal, Dunn J. reviewed the evidence that the trial judge had relied on: [The Butlers] are adherents to a breakaway sect of the Seventh Day. Adventist Church. They associate with people of like religious views and practice a lifestyle which may be regarded, by some, as out of the norm. They are vegetarians and follow a strict dietary regime. The children are permitted two meals a day. They are not allowed liquids with their meals or for one hour prior to and one hour after same. The children have not been immunized as recommended by the Department of Health, Newfoundland. Instilling certain religious beliefs in reference to the Bible is fundamental to the lifestyle of the appellants. For example, they believe that the end of the world is fast approaching and are teaching their children to expect and prepare for same.In December 1995, the court granted the Butler's appeal and ordered that the children be immediately returned to their parents. In her conclusions, Dunn J. found that the Butler's parental rights under Section 7 of the Charter of Rights had been violated. She concluded that the children's academic abilities seemed normal for their age, they appeared well-adjusted, were physically healthy, were rarely sick and that there was absolutely no evidence that the parents physically or mentally abused the children. In response to the Butler's claims of fundamental and procedural injustice, Dunn J. stated: Where parental rights to custody of children and the possible deprivation of such custody are at issue, proper procedure and reasonable notice are essential to the process. The application was not conducted in a manner in keeping with the principles of fundamental justice and on this basis alone I would have been prepared to grant the appeal.21Although the Butler children were eventually returned to their parents, they had spent more than six months in foster care. The devastating results that this has had, and will continue to have, on the family and on their relationship to their community cannot be underestimated. The Butler's case is not isolated. Similar incidents are occurring across Canada. In June 1995, for example, a Nanaimo couple's three children were apprehended by Social Services on grounds later described by an attending psychiatrist as diagnostic speculations. The event occurred after Terry and Lisa Neave's two-year-old daughter, Karianna, was transferred from Nanaimo General Hospital to B.C. Children's Hospital in Vancouver for testing and treatment of a choking disorder. One day before the transfer, the Nanaimo pediatrician taught Mrs. Neave a jaw-thrust manoeuvre that would clear her daughter's airway when she was choking. This manoeuvre involved raising the child's jaw with a hand at her neck. At Children's Hospital, Lisa and Karianna Neave were assigned to a double room, which they shared with another mother and her sick child. The mother observed Mrs. Neave perform the manoeuvre during Karianna's choking episodes, suspected that this was abuse and reported her suspicions to hospital authorities. Soon after, the head of the hospital's child protection unit (C.P.U.), together with a social worker, questioned Lisa Neave, at which time she explained her doctor's instructions. The C.P.U. director did not contact the Neave's pediatrician or family doctor because, as she later told the court, it was not her responsibility to do a thorough investigation. She diagnosed Mrs. Neave as having Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome (M.P.S.), an unusual form of child abuse in which a parent fabricates an illness for their child and allows multiple unnecessary investigations and treatments. The next day, social services apprehended all three of the Neave's children. Later, in family court, the judge accepted the social worker's recommendation that Mrs. Neave was high-risk and that the children should be temporarily placed with their grandparents. The order allowed Mrs. Neave to visit her children under supervision, but she could not be alone with them. The only evidence before the court was the C.P.U. director's diagnosis and an affidavit by Mrs. Neave's cousin, a social worker, who stated that Mrs. Neave was "emotionally troubled and a good person struggling with huge problems...who may very well be crying out for help in the only way she knew how." At trial, the cousin conceded that he had never seen Mrs. Neave do anything in his presence that could be misconstrued as abuse. In fact, no one had ever seen Mrs. Neave abuse her children. In the meantime, the Neave's family doctor and pediatrician tried to contact the acting social worker but reported that their calls were not returned. In December, the children were allowed to come home, with Mr. Neave acting as supervisor over his wife. In January, the results of a court-ordered psychiatric assessment of Mrs. Neave concluded that Mrs. Neave's only psychological problem was caused by the apprehension of her children and by an R.C.M.P. interrogation shortly thereafter. In February, the Ministry of Social Services applied to the court to have all orders against Mrs. Neave set aside. At the time the orders were set aside, the Neave children had lived away from home for five months and the Neave's legal bills exceeded $10,000. As these cases illustrate, the margin for error in Canada's child protection laws place families in a vulnerable position. This is not to say that the state has no role in protecting children. Society has a vested interest in ensuring that a child's best interests are served. There are times when the state's power to intervene in cases of genuine physical or sexual abuse or neglect are crucial. A parents rights do not trump the rights of their child. Neither are the two necessarily opposed. The rights of the child must be paramount. However, where the parent and the state disagree on the child's best interests, the law must begin with the presumption that the parent, and not the state, is right. Beginning at this point places the onus on the state to rebut the presumption according to the principles of fundamental justice. For example, when a parent administers corporal discipline in a manner that a child-protection worker decides is abusive, but which the parent believes is appropriate in the circumstances, it should be presumed that the parent is in the best position to assess the situation and act with the child's best interests in mind. In Ogg-Moss v. R (1983), 41 C.R. 297 (S.C.C.), the Supreme Court concluded that if corporal discipline was administered reasonably, and was intended for the benefit and education of the child, this constitutes legitimate discipline falling within Section 43 of the Criminal Code. A chronological study of the case law suggests that the risk of successfully invoking Section 43 to justify physical injury to a child is steadily diminishing. Prosecutors and judges are more aware of child abuse and are more responsive to protecting children's rights than were earlier courts. This observation was recently made by one of Canada's leading authorities on family rights, Queen's University law professor Nicholas Bala. In a presentation made to the Consultation on Section 43 of the Criminal Code, Professor Bala stated that: The law and its application has clearly changed in the last two or three years. Court decisions interpreting Section 43 are moving away from tolerating the levels of physical injury to children cited from earlier years. While there are differences between judges and even between the courts of appeal of the different provinces, positive change may best come about through the development of case law to reflect changing attitudes toward the acceptance of severe corporal punishment of children.22It then becomes incumbent on the child protection worker to rebut the presumption with evidence that is directly probative of the ultimate question, is this child in need of protection as contemplated by the legislation? Speculative allegations would not in and of themselves be sufficiently probative to justify apprehension. Placing family autonomy and parental rights squarely within Section 7 of the Charter of Rights would be a significant step toward ensuring a more equitable child-protection system. Deference to parental rights would not detract from the rights of the child; it would protect the child against the trauma that accompanies wrongful apprehension and temporary placement away from home and family. In addition, it would provide some protection to parents against the formidable powers of the state, which are sometimes exercised in ways that do not comply with the principles of natural justice. In December 1994, for example, the Children's Aid Society (C.A.S) began to investigate an Ontario family after someone in the change room of a local swimming pool noticed a bruise on the boy's bottom. A C.A.S worker requested that she be allowed to come into the family home and examine the child. The parents refused, insisting instead that they would have their family doctor examine the child as quickly as possible and submit a report to the C.A.S. The doctor s report indicated that there was a transient bruise on the boy's bottom. The father readily admitted to the C.A.S. worker that he had spanked his son after the boy kicked the family cat and then refused to go to his room. The father explained that he had carried his son, kicking and screaming, to the boy's bedroom, where he proceeded to smack the boy's bottom with a belt. The father acknowledged that the spanking in question was excessive and that bruising a child was not within the purview of reasonable corporal discipline. However, he maintained that this was an isolated incident, unlikely to recur.23 The C.A.S. tried to have the couple sign a contract agreeing to refrain from using corporal punishment to discipline their children. The couple had six children between one and nine years of age. This was the first allegation of abuse against either parent. The couple refused, stating that they believed corporal punishment was an appropriate form of discipline reserved for instances of blatant disobedience or defiance. They retained a lawyer and attempted to negotiate with the C.A.S. The next day, with no advance warning to the father, two police officers arrested him at his place of work. In the presence of his co-workers, the father was charged with assault causing bodily harm and assault with a weapon. He was handcuffed and taken into custody pending a bail hearing. In May 1995, six months and eight court appearances after the father was charged, the Crown, without explanation, asked the court to stay the proceedings. By this time, the family had incurred approximately $8,000 in legal fees and much emotional stress. As a result of the ordeal, the husband believed his opportunities for advancement with his employer had been seriously undermined. This case, like Butler and Neave, raises questions about fundamental justice and procedural fairness in child-protection cases. Much of what occurred would not have, if family autonomy and parental rights were clearly understood to be within the scope of Section 7 of the Charter. The theoretical and functional chaos that characterizes much of Canada's child-rights policies is due in large part to Parliament's failure to ensure that the Charter of Rights expressly protects family autonomy and parental rights. In order to reintroduce the contextual purpose into child-rights theory, policymakers must recognize again that protecting family autonomy is foundational to ensuring the best interests of the child. Recently, the Supreme Court of Canada took steps to initiate the recognition of family autonomy by importing American jurisprudence that supports the inclusion of both parental rights and family autonomy as protected liberties within the meaning of Section 7 of the Charter.What is Family Autonomy? In 1982, the Utah Supreme Court provided that family autonomy should be among the primary objectives of the state: The parental liberty right at issue...is fundamental to the existence of the institution of the family...Recognition of the due process and retained right of parents promotes values [that are] essential to the preservation of human freedom and dignity and to the perpetuation of our democratic society. The family is the principal conservator and transmitter of cherished values and traditions . . . Any invasion of the sanctity of the family, even with the loftiest motives, unavoidably threatens those traditions and values.24Family autonomy is recognized and protected in several international humanrights documents of which Canada is a signatory. For example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides: Art. 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence.... Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference.25Similarly, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides: Art. 23.1 The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.26As referred to earlier, the Canadian Bill of Rights states in its preamble: The Canadian Nation is founded upon principles that acknowledge the supremacy of God, the dignity and worth of the human person and the position of the family in a society of free men and free institutions.27In addition, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states in its preamble: Convinced that the family, as the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children, should be afforded the necessary protection and assistance so that it can fully assume its responsibilities in the community.28The pro-family provisions of these documents reflect an age-old philosophical tradition that it is in the public interest to support and protect the family. This tradition has developed out of the commonly-held belief of societies throughout history that the family is the principal social institution, uniquely equipped to carry out various functions that advance the public interest (including care for the physical, economic and relational needs of its members) with minimal reliance on the state.29 Today, child-rights advocates argue against using the traditional concept of family. They want to change what they consider as blatant inequalities and injustices within the traditional family structure. It is increasingly common for child-rights groups to call on the state to invoke its parens patriae jurisdiction in order to remedy these injustices.30 Events of the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women, held recently in Beijing, illustrate this ideology in action on an international level. In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights defined the family as "the natural and fundamental group unit of society...entitled to protection by society and the state." Contrast that statement with the dismissive mention of the family in the conference's Platform for Action: "In many cases, violence against women and girls occurs in the family or in the home...violence against women throughout the life cycle derives essentially from cultural patterns, in particular the harmful effects of certain traditional or customary practices. . ." This statement would be fine if it were clear that traditional and customary practices referred to such things as genital mutilation, female infanticide, and child marriage. When read within the context of the Platform for Action though, this statement has a wider application which includes the traditional family structure. Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard University and leader of the Vatican delegation to the Beijing Conference, made the following observations about the treatment of the family and the role of the parent in the Platform for Action, "The documents barely mention marriage, motherhood, and the family—except negatively as impediments to women's self actualization (and as associated with violence and oppression)."31 Professor Glendon also noted that a coalition of countries, including Canada, opposed any affirmation of parental rights. "Though the Beijing documents had identified the situation of the 'girl child' as a 'critical area', the coalition attempted to eliminate all recognition of parental rights and duties from the draft.... They seemed indifferent to the fact that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent human rights documents have consistently protected the parent-child relationship from outside intrusion."32Conclusion: Extending Charter Protection to the Family In January 1995, in R (B.) v. Metro Toronto Children's Aid Society, the Supreme Court of Canada undertook an in-depth analysis of the liberty right referred to in Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and its application to family autonomy and parental rights. In this case, the appellants, Jehovah's Witnesses, declined to allow their infant daughter to receive blood transfusions which the attending medical doctors believed necessary to preserve the child's life. Responding to their refusal, the C.A.S. secured an order for temporary wardship of the child and authorized the hospital to perform the transfusions. Authorities returned the infant to her parents once the transfusions were complete. The appellants challenged the Ontario Child Welfare Act, arguing that its power to force temporary wardship of their child, based only on their refusal to consent to a blood transfusion, infringed the appellants' right to choose medical treatment for their infant, contrary to Section 7 of the Charter of Rights. Although the Supreme Court of Canada rightly rejected the appeal on the ground that the child's right to life will always supersede the parent's right to make medical decisions for the child, this case is extremely significant for what it says about parental rights and family autonomy. The court considered "instructive" a series of court decisions defining the relationship between family autonomy and liberty in the American Bill of Rights. The court followed the reasoning in these cases to conclude that the liberty right in Section 7 of the Charter includes the right of individuals to pursue family life free from undue interference by the state. The court concluded that the individual's right to pursue family life included the right of parents to make decisions on matters that affect their children. Writing for Gonthier, McLachlin, L'Heureux-Dube, JJ. and himself, Mr. Justice LaForest made the following statement: ...the American experience can give us valuable guidance as to the proper meaning and limits of liberty. The United States Supreme Court has given a liberal interpretation to the concept of liberty, as it relates to family matters. It has elevated both the notion of the integrity of the family unit and that of parental rights to the status of constitutional values through its interpretation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.... Although [in Canada the parents'] liberty interest is not a parental right tantamount to a right of property in children, our society is far from having repudiated the privileged role parents exercise in the upbringing of their children. This role translates into a protected sphere of parental decision-making which is rooted in the presumption that parents should make important decisions affecting their children because parents are more likely to appreciate the best interests of their children and because the state is ill-equipped to make such decisions itself....I would have thought it plain that the right to nurture a child, to care for its development, and to make decisions for it in fundamental matters such as medical care, are part of the liberty interest of a parent. We must accept that parents can, at times, make decisions contrary to their children's wishes—and rights—as long as they do not exceed the threshold dictated by public policy, in its broadest context.33In conclusion, the chaos that characterizes child-rights law reform can be remedied only by substantive and procedural recognition of the value of the family and the importance of its autonomy within society. This requires recognition that the present direction of child-rights law is in some respects unbalanced and thus corrosive of the importance of the family in society. The way to affirm its importance would be to, once again, give it explicit recognition within the Canadian constitution. This would be best achieved by an amendment to the Charter of Rights to include the family, and continued development of case law built on the Supreme Court of Canada's judgement in R.(B.). The former could be done in tandem with provincial measures to affirm the importance of the family in provincial human-rights legislation or in separate legislation for that purpose. Amendment of the Federal Human Rights Act could be important to clarify Justice Minister Rock's assurances that the recent inclusion of "sexual orientation" as an enumerated ground for the purpose of protection from discrimination was not intended to indicate any alteration to definitions of "spouse" or "family" for matters under federal jurisdiction (this would be in line with the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Egan v. Canada).34 By extending Charter protection to parental rights and family autonomy, the Supreme Court of Canada has laid a foundation for renewing the constitutional status of the family. It is significant that in Butler and Butler, the Newfoundland Supreme Court relied on the majority judgement in R. (B.), and quoted the words of Mr. Justice LaForest as authority for the protection of parental rights within Section 7 of the Charter of Rights. At best, this renewed recognition of the family could restore a much-needed balance to the administrative and judicial policies of the state on matters relating to the parent-child relationship.Notes 1 Re J.P., 648 P. 2d 1364 at 1375-76 (Utah 1982). Quoted in Family Law and the 'Liberty Interest': Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights, Nicholas Bala and J. Douglas Redfearn, 15 Ottawa L. Review 274.2 I use the term "post-modern human rights" to distinguish the present objectives of human-rights initiatives from those of 1948. According to the United Nation's 50th anniversary report, Our Global Neighborhood, the post-war objective was to develop an international community to foster commonality on economic and social matters. The guiding principles were general and included a respect for life, a sense of liberty, justice, equity, and integrity, and a commitment to mutual caring. This contrasts with post-modern human rights theory in which the focus is on protecting individual autonomy and eliminating perceived inequalities between social groups.3 Convention on the Rights of the Child, Can. T.S. 1992 No. 3 Art. 1-54.4 This document is available free of charge upon request from the Human Rights Directorate, Department of Canadian Heritage, Ottawa.5 Children's Rights as Communication: "Reflections on Autopoietic Theory and the United Nations Convention," The Modern Law Review, 1994, Vol. 54, at 385.6 Convention on the Rights of the Child, Can. T.S. 1992 No. 3, Art. 1 - 54.7 Article 19 has been interpreted by the U.N. Convention Review Committee to include freedom from reasonable corporal discipline by a parent for the purpose of correction. In its report, entitled Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child: Canada, June 19, 1995, available from Heritage Canada, the Committee criticizes Canada for failing to repeal Section 43 of the Criminal Code, the section that allows parents to use corporal discipline reasonable in the circumstances to correct their children. In this document, the Committee specifically recommends that Canada prohibit all corporal discipline of children. Lobby groups within Canada, including the Canadian Coalition on the Rights of the Child and the Repeal 43 Committee, have relied on the Committee's recommendation to argue that the government is obliged to repeal Section 43 in order to fulfill its commitments under the Convention. In fact, neither the Convention nor the Committee's recommendations have legal force in Canadian law. However, they have added considerable political and persuasivevweight to the arguments of no-spank lobbyists.8 Iain Benson, "The Meaning of Renewal," Centrepoints, September 1995, Vol.1 No.2, p. 1.9. Indexed as R. v. M. (C.), 23 O.R. (3d) at 629. 10 Halm v. Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration) 27 C.R.R. (2d) 23.11 Ibid.12 Halm v. Canada, p. 32.13 Ibid., p. 33.14 R. v. Roy (C.Q.) [1995] R.J.Q. 282. This case contains a careful analysis of the law, and it comes to the conclusion that Section 159 does not violate the Charter.15 Convention on the Rights of the Child: First Report of Canada, May, 1994, Human Rights Directorate, Department of Canadian Heritage, Ottawa.16 Ibid., p. 5.17 Some academics recommend that the evidence against a parent be "clear and convincing," a degree higher than a mere balance of probabilities, but not as strict as the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard. See "Family Law and the Liberty Interest: Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights", Nicholas Bala and J. Douglas Redfearn, 15 Ottawa Law Review 274.18 For further analysis of potential parental rights violations under provincial child-protection legislation, see "A Family Law Hitchhiker's Guide to the Charter Galaxy," D.A. Rollie Thompson, [1989], 3 C.F.L.Q. 314, 327-339.19 The Director of Child Welfare v. Butler and Butler, Provincial Court of Newfoundland, Family Division, March 23, 1995, File No. 015, unreported. Appeal decision, Butler and Butler v. The Director of Child Welfare, Supreme Court of Newfoundland, Trial Division, December 15, 1995. File # G.B. No. 46, unreported.20 Butler and Butler v. The Director of Child Welfare, supra, at 1-2.21 Ibid., p.27.22 Final Report—Consultation on Section 43, 31 March 1994: An Examination of Physical Interventions with Children Summary Paper, p.6, presented by The Canadian Coalition for the Rights of the Child to the Children's Bureau, March 31, 1994.23 R v. Joseph Cleary, Ontario Court, Provincial Division, December 15, 1994.24 Supra, see note 1.25 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as adopted by the United Nations General Assembly , Resolution 217A (111), 10th December, 194826 The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, U.N. General Assembly, Resolutions, reported in 21 C.A.O.R. Supp. 16, U.N. Document A/6316 (1966).27 The Canadian Bill of Rights, 8-9 Elizabeth II, c. 44 (Canada), assented to 10th August, 1960.28 supra, see note 6.29 There is a wealth of scholarly research to support the primacy of the family throughout history. For instance, Max Rheinstein, the comparative law scholar from the University of Chicago, in an article in The International Encyclopedia of Comparative Law describes the family as "pre-legal," noting that, for most of history, the state existed not as an aggregate of individuals, but of "family clans" or "houses."30 Parens patriae, translated into English means "the state is the parent of society." However, child-rights groups advocating greater state control of the family stretch the doctrine of parens patriae beyond what the jurisprudence can support. In Hepton v Matt, [1957] S.C.R. 606 at 607-08, Mr. Justice Rand made clear that parens patriae was never intended or used to justify the broad regulation of family life by the state. The kind of state authority that child-rights advocates promote more accurately describes what some academics have termed the therapeutic state. The therapeutic state refers to a government structure in which the casework method of social philanthropy is linked to the coercive power of the state, with the result that "there are no rights except those of individuals and the state." See Mary Ann Glendon, The Transformation of Family Law, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.31 What Happened at Beijing, Mary Ann Glendon, First Things, January 1996, Number 59, p. 31.32 Ibid., p. 32. The coalition referred to included the fifteen-member European Union, Barbados, Canada, Namibia, and South Africa.33 R (B.) v. Metro Toronto Children's Aid Society et al., 1995 1 S.C.R. 315.34 Egan et al v. Canada (1995), 124 D. L. R. 609 (S.C.C.).

The Canada-US border is the crossing point for the largest merchandise trade relationship in world history. Driven by the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement and the NAFTA, Canada’s merchandise exports to the US reached US$255 billion in 2004, while imports from the US were US$163 billion, for total two-way merchandise trade of US$418 billion, leaving Canada with a merchandise trade surplus of US$92 billion. In this article, adapted from the publication, Greenlighting Trade: A Trade Corridors Atlas, from the Work Research Foundation, the author drills down on the numbers and finds that Canada-US trade can be broken into six corridors, largely along regional and sectoral lines, such as the Ontario-Michigan automotive corridor, and the Alberta energy corridor. In A Special Relationship: Canada-US Trade in the 21st Century, a speech delivered to a Trade Corridors Roundtable in 2005, Allan Gotlieb argued for the deepening of bilateral channels between the two countries, given “a common commitment to values, principles and way of life that marks our relationship as different from that of most other nations, even the most friendly.” Former ambassador Gotlieb advocates the broad strategy framed by common commitments that reflect the trading culture of Canada and the US. The following argues that these commitments and our trading culture are expressed in the various trading communities shaped by geography, the sectoral character of most trade, and by the myriad human and institutional relationships that make trade possible. Canada-US trade can best be understood framed by the concept of “trade corridors.” The following proposes a sector-based and geographically conditioned argument for the “corridor character” of Canada-US trade. That Canada and the US cooperate in the production of goods and services across political boundaries within sectors, by geographic proximity, and by way of physical transportation infrastructure. Trade corridors tend to integrate the Canada and US economies. Trade corridors are more than transportation infrastructure. Therefore, trade corridors are defined as streams of products, services, and information moving within and through communities in geographic patterns according to a matrix or “culture” of trade agreements and treaties, statutes, delegated legislation, and custom that govern and guide trading relationships, institutions, and structures. In what follows, the six largest sectors of Canada’s export trade to the United States, which illustrate the usefulness of the concept of trade corridors, are described. First, trade corridors are related to two other conceptual frameworks currently employed in understanding Canada’s international trade, gateways and global supply chains. David Emerson was sworn into the Harper cabinet as minister of international trade and minister for the Pacific Gateway and the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics. Part of Emerson’s title, minister for the Pacific Gateway, is indicative of a Canadian trade priority focusing on the Pacific Rim and, especially, development of trade with China. Canadian traders are enamoured of the prospects of reaching a market populated by more than 1.2 billion people. However, market access and penetration tends to flow in favour of the Chinese. This is clearly illustrated in respect of Canada’s largest trading partner and export market, the United States. From 2000 to 2004, China’s merchandise exports to the US grew from about US$100 billion to US$196.2 billion, while US merchandise exports to China grew from about US$15 billion in 2000 to US$32.6 billion in 2004. The US trade deficit with China increased US$38.6 billion to US$163.6 billion from 2003 to 2004. The clear advantage went to China. For comparison (from the same US government source), Canadian merchandise exports to the US rose from about US$235 billion in 2000 to US$255.7 billion in 2004. US merchandise exports to Canada rose slightly from about US$160 billion in 2000 to US$163.2 billion in 2004. The US trade deficit with Canada increased US$17.2 billion (23 percent) to US$92.5 billion from 2003 to 2004. While China’s merchandise exports to the US rose in 2004 over 2003 by US$44.5 billion or 29 percent, Canada’s merchandise exports to the US in the same period increased by US$31.6 billion or 14 percent. Again, advantage China. For purposes of comparison, Canada’s merchandise exports to China increased from US$3.4 billion in 2003 to US$5.1 billion in 2004 and to US$5.8 billion in 2005. Canada’s merchandise imports from China increased from US$13.2 billion in 2003 to US$18.5 billion in 2004 and to US$24.3 billion in 2005. Yet again, the advantage clearly goes to the Chinese. To frame Canada’s international trade policy in terms of gateways focused on trade with China is to reinforce their competitive advantage, not ours. This is true for the bilateral trade, and for Canada’s competition with China in the US merchandise market. The latter is the case since a gateway’s framework tends to divert Canada’s international trade focus from the world’s largest merchandise market, and from the merchandise market, where Canada holds the greatest competitive advantages in terms of geographic proximity, language, and culture — including business culture. That market, of course, is the United States. In February 2006, the federal Department of Industry hosted a conference in Ottawa designed to educate public servants with the department about the concept of “the global supply chain.” Over the last few years, Industry Canada has pursued research framed by this concept, seeking to drill down onto how goods and services move, not just through the Canadian economy, but through Canadian industry to and from the world. In effect, “the global supply chain” is framing Industry Canada’s efforts to understand the flows of Canadian exports and imports — Canada’s international trade. Global supply chain research points to how Canada’s trade is organized mainly in terms of businesses, offering a description of Canada’s trade flows. It is helpful. But this presents an inadequate explanation by itself of Canada’s trade capable of informing and providing direction to Canada’s international trade policy. That said, both “gateways” and “global supply chains” are conceptual metaphors designed to bring coherence to our understanding of international trade. “Trade corridors,” however, is a metaphor grounded in history that offers greater coherence, insight, and a more fully rounded understanding of international trade, and allows us to account for Canada’s most important trading relationship — that with the US. Canada’s challenge is to maintain and expand the infrastructure necessary to keeping itself accessible to the world, especially to the US. The Canada- US trading relationship is by far the largest and most valuable in the world. In terms of merchandise trade, Canada’s exports to the world in 2004 were valued at $411.3 billion. Exports of merchandise to the United State amounted to $348.1 billion, constituting 85 percent of Canada’s merchandise exports. Canada’s dependence on the US market for merchandise exports can hardly be overstated. For example, over half of Ontario’s output is in exports to the US. Canada’s dependence on the US market for services exports is similar. In 2004, Canadian service exports globally were $62.3 billion. Service exports to the United States were valued at $36.0 billion. If trade is the foundation on which Canada’s economy is built, then trade with the United States is the cornerstone. Our living standards and our ability to fund health care, education, old age pensions, and other social programs are predicated on trade, especially Canada-US trade. Canada’s trade is characterized by a heavy dependence on trading with the United States, and on a Canada-US economy that is integrated by way of trade. This integration of the Canada-US economy is represented in Canada’s top six export sectors to the United States: motor vehicles and parts, mineral fuels and oils, machinery and equipment, forest products, commercial services, and agricultural and fish products. These six sectors illustrate how Canada’s trade is shaped by its sectoral character, and how these sectors’ regional orientations — or, concentration in certain geographic regions of North America — tend to integrate the Canadian and US economies regionally. The integration of these sectors of trade constitutes trade corridors. Since exports of merchandise and services are concentrated by region, the trade corridors account that follows focuses on the region, province, or provinces that are the primary source of these exports from Canada and their destinations in the United States. This research looks at Canada to US merchandise trade in two ways: first, by industry; and then by product and service. However, for consistency, the statistics cited and the analysis given is based on the value of export products and services. 1. The Ontario-Michigan automobile manufacturing trade corridor (figure 1). Canada’s exports of “motor vehicles, trailers, bicycles, motorcycles and other similar vehicles” in 2004 to the world were valued at $80.1 billion. Canada’s exports to the United States in this category totalled $77.6 billion in 2004. This export category accounts for a favourable trade balance — a trade surplus — of $28.3 billion with the US. Some 95 percent of Canada’s exports to the US from automobile manufacturing come from Ontario. Ontario’s merchandise exports to the world in all categories amounted in 2004 to $199 billion, of which $180 billion, or 90 percent, went to the United States. Of Ontario’s exports to the world, $75.8 billion, or 38 percent, for 2004 were in the automotive industry. From Ontario, automobile manufacturing exports were responsible in 2004 for $73.8 billion or 41 percent of Ontario’s total merchandise exports to the US. Over the last five years, Ontario’s exports in this category were relatively stable, averaging $75 billion, albeit trending slightly downward overall. That Ontario is engaged in automobile manufacturing with Michigan becomes clear when one considers that Ontario’s exports in this category to Michigan are valued at $46.6 billion. Compare this with exports to other states and regions of the US, which are relatively evenly distributed, except for California, which receives automobile manufacturing exports from Ontario valued at $13.8 billion. Nearly 60 percent of Ontario’s exports to the US in this category are to Michigan. As Stephen Blank of Pace University, New York City, put it: “We (Canada and the United States) make cars together.” To narrow or focus this remark further, Ontario and Michigan make cars together. What this suggests is the integration of a Canada-US auto industry concentrated in the Ontario- Michigan trade corridor, which then distributes the products of this industry in a supply chain throughout the rest of Canada and the United States. Consequently, the greatest strain on physical infrastructure — highways, ports and canals, railways, bridges and tunnels, and customs and border facilities — are those incoming and outgoing between Ontario and Michigan. But the greatest strain is on infrastructure from Ontario to Michigan. The strain placed on this infrastructure should not be underestimated: 27 percent of all Canada-US merchandise trade exports pass over the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor and Detroit. 2. The Alberta mineral energy trade corridor (see figure 2). Canada’s total merchandise exports to the world in the category of “mineral fuels, mineral oils, bituminous substances and mineral waxes” in 2004 were valued at $68.6 billion. Canada’s exports to the US in this merchandise category were valued at $66.5 billion in 2004, or almost 97 percent of its world exports. Canada’s trade balance with the US in this sector alone is $43.4 billion in Canada’s favour. This sector is responsible for almost 77 percent of Canada’s overall trade surplus with the US accumulating to $56.6 billion in 2004. Some 69 percent of all mineral energy exports in this category from Canada to the US, valued at $46.1 billion, comes from Alberta. Alberta’s 2004 merchandise exports to the world are valued at $67.3 billion, of which $59.5 billion, or 88 percent of the total, go to the United States. Of Alberta’s exports to the US, 77 percent are “mineral fuels, mineral oils, bituminous substances and mineral waxes” valued at $46.1 billion. Year on year, Alberta’s mineral energy exports increase at a remarkable rate. Alberta’s mineral energy exports to the US increased 6.8 percent from 2000 to 2001, decreased 17.5 percent from 2001 to 2002, increased 32.6 percent from 2002 to 2003, and increased 15.2 percent from 2003 to 2004 — for a total increase in the value of mineral energy exports of 34.6 percent from 2000 to 2004. Alberta’s exports of oil and gas follow a network of energy pipelines, and as such the destinations of these exports follow the pipeline network. From the point of view of infrastructure, the Alberta mineral energy trade corridor is defined by this pipeline network. Its number one and number two export destinations — to Illinois, valued at $9.8 billion, and to Washington State, valued at $6.8 billion, or more than one-third of total mineral energy exports to the US — are the sites of major pipeline terminals. While the key to understanding Canadian and US automobile manufacturing is that it is a North American automobile manufacturing industry centred in Ontario and Michigan, mineral energy exports from Canada are somewhat different. Here, the key things to keep in mind are that Canada is a net exporter — by far — of mineral energy to the US, and that mineral energy production is concentrated in Alberta. Canada’s production of oil is far outstripping domestic demand and is projected over time to approach US levels of oil production. Canada’s demand for natural gas is a fraction of domestic natural gas production, most of which is exported to the US. So, while there is a North American mineral energy industry, Canada’s role and, especially, Alberta’s, is as a net supplier of mineral energy to US demand. Alberta’s mineral fuels industry — “the oil patch” — is poised for another stage of if not unprecedented, near-unprecedented growth, with the potential to create thousands of new jobs in Canada. According to the Alberta Chamber of Resources, the industry is poised to see its production increase “more than twofold to five million barrels a day, or 16 percent of North American demand by 2030,” and to “generate an additional $40 billion of economic growth in Canada.” More than $100 billion of development construction has been announced in the Fort McMurray- Athabasca oilsands, alone. The Alberta Chamber of Resources calls for advance planning to keep pace with development of supply and demand as this trade corridor expands and intensifies. As Alberta’s production of natural gas from northwestern Alberta and production of oil sands crude from northeastern Alberta increases along with US demand, exports will outstrip pipeline capacity. As more production of offshore crude comes onstream from Atlantic Canada, pipeline capacity must be increased in order to move supply to US markets. But the big player in the Canadian export market for mineral energy is, and will remain for some time to come, Alberta. 3. The Ontario-Quebec Machinery and Equipment Trade Corridor. According to Trade Date Online, Canada exports electrical or electronic machinery and equipment and nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery and mechanical products to the world valued at $51.5 billion. Of this, $40.3 billion or 78 percent goes to US destinations, resulting in a negative trade balance of $11.6 billion. Some 87 percent of US-bound exports in this sector, valued at $34.9 billion, are from Quebec and Ontario. Exports of machinery and equipment from Quebec and Ontario represent 80 percent of Canada’s such exports to the world. Of these exports, nearly 55 percent, valued at $19.1 billion, were to the Great Lakes states, the “mideast,” and New England. With the exception of some $2.3 billion to California, most exports of this equipment are distributed in a trade corridor running mainly east of the Mississippi south to Georgia, Florida, and Texas. However, the value of exports of this equipment to the US has fallen by about one-quarter over the last five years, representing a shrinking export market and trade corridor for Canada. It also represented a negative trade balance of $11.6 billion, albeit the lowest over the past five years, beginning in 2000. Even with this taken into consideration, these exports represent about 10 percent of Canada’s total exports to the US — an important source of jobs and trade. 4. The Forest Products Trade Corridors. Canada exports forest products in 2004 were valued at $44.7 billion, of which $35.6 billion, or nearly 80 percent, went to destinations in the United States. Canada enjoys a huge trade surplus with the US in this sector totalling $27.4 billion. The largest part of forest products bound for export is produced in seven provinces clustered in three groups: Quebec and Ontario; New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; and British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. Quebec and Ontario together export forest products valued at $19.1 billion, or almost 54 percent of all such exports to the US. British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan together export forest products valued at $12.6 billion, or nearly 36 percent of such exports to the US. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia together export forest products valued at $2.8 billion, or 8 percent of such exports to the US. Ontario and Quebec export forest products throughout a trade corridor supply chain running east of the Mississippi from the Great Lakes, the “mid-east,” New England, on south to the southeast and Texas, valued at $16.3 billion or 85 percent of the total bound for US destinations from Ontario and Quebec. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick export forest products valued at $2.5 billion, or 91 percent of their US exports in this sector throughout the same trade corridor. The British Columbia-Alberta-Saskatchewan cluster, however, exports forest products valued at $7.9 billion, or 62 percent of its total US exports, to the “far west” (including a small amount to Alaska and Hawaii), to the southwest, the Rocky Mountain region, and to the plains states. To the Great Lakes region, these provinces also export forest products valued at circa $1.8 billion, or another 14 percent of their total exports of this type to the US. Since most forest products are moved between Canada and the US by rail or by highway, the key physical infrastructure challenges may be potential choke points at border crossings for customs, particularly with respect to exports from British Columbia to Washington and Oregon. But the greater barrier of long standing to the export trade in forest products from Canada has more to do with US tariffs and quotas on Canadian forest products and the ongoing dispute prosecuted by the US forestry industry in US courts and by the US administration alternately through the FTA, NAFTA, or the World Trade Organization disputes resolution processes. The 2006 softwood lumber agreement between the Harper and Bush administrations ends a five-year trade war, provides seven to nine years of certainty of access, though at capped levels of market share, and with some money left on the table. 5. The commercial services trade corridor. To reiterate, Canada’s service exports to the world total $62.3 billion, of which half are in the form of commercial services valued at $32.3 billion, or nearly 52 percent of the total. Canada’s service exports to the United States are valued at $36 billion, and of these $20.4 billion, or nearly 58 percent, are commercial services. By comparison, over one-quarter of service exports to the US were travel services amounting to $9.7 billion, and transportation and government services amounting to $5.8 billion. In 2004, Canada ran a trade deficit of about $5.8 billion in this sector. Exports of commercial services to the US represent nearly one-third (33 percent) of all service exports there. Of service exports to the United States, over half were commercial services amounting to $20.4 billion. Key advantages for Canada in this sector are the overall integration in business and information technology and in accounting practices, shared time zones, and, to a large extent, our common language and culture. This sector may well represent an archetype of our definition of trade corridors. The research does not trace the flows of Canadian exports of commercial services from specific Canadian jurisdictions to specific US jurisdictions or regions. This begs further study to track the trade corridors of commercial services from Canada to the United States. 6. The agricultural and fishing products trade corridors. Canada’s agricultural products for export — excluding implements— total $26.7 billion (2004), of which $16.5 billion or almost 62 percent went to US destinations. Canada enjoys a trade surplus with the US in this sector of $4.7 billion. By far, the majority of agricultural exports to US destinations follow a trade corridor to northern states across the Canada-US border, and to California, Texas and to the more populous southeastern states of North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. The bulk of Canada’s agricultural exports come from six provinces: Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia. Close to one-half, or 45 percent, of Canada’s US-bound agricultural exports come from Ontario, about 15 percent from Quebec, 13 percent from Alberta, about the same from Saskatchewan and Manitoba taken together (14 percent), and about 6 percent from British Columbia. Or, to put it differently, about 60 percent from Quebec and Ontario, 27 percent from the three Prairie provinces together, or almost 20 percent from Alberta and BC. Canada’s exports of fish products to the US in 2004 totalled $2.4 billion, or more than 62 percent of its exports to the world ($3.9 billion) in this category, with a resulting trade balance in Canada’s favour of $1.7 billion. The value of US-bound fish products from Atlantic Canada in 2004 totalled $1.6 billion, or 67 percent of Canada’s exports in this category. If Quebec is included with Atlantic Canada, that brings the total exports of fish products from this region to $1.7 billion — 71 percent of the total from Canada. British Columbia represents 22 percent of Canada’s fish products exports to the US. Of Atlantic Canada’s (excluding Quebec) fish product exports, nearly 84 percent follows a trade corridor to New England. British Columbia’s fish products exports to Washington, Oregon, and California total $436 million — 79 percent of its exports to the US in this product category. Each of Canada’s six largest sectoral, trade corridors is conditioned by its geographic proximity to the US market. But it is more than that. Much more. Each trade corridor represents a common or shared culture of trade. The culture of trade is more than the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement or the North American Free Trade Agreement, or any other trade agreements and treaties. The culture of trade includes a common commitment to constitutional, representative government in which the rule of law is upheld and elected officials are accountable to a popular electorate. It includes the myriad business and accounting practices, a common commitment to the sanctity of the contract, and the numerous webs of business and personal relationships, which allow orders to be placed and filled on the basis of a telephone call and the strength of a handshake. These are components of what are understood here to be trade corridors. It is this more rounded understanding of Canada-US trade that encompasses both the “gateways” and “global supply chain” frameworks, and takes both a step further. In Greenlighting Trade: A Trade Corridors Atlas, published in 2005, a number of next steps are proposed that would take account of these dimensions of trade corridors. Also discussed, at greater length, is the philosophical framework that informs this development of the trade corridors concept. Trade is more than the econometrics of international transactions in goods and services. The Canada-US trade corridors are illustrative of this. The Canada-US trade corridors can point to what Canada’s trade priorities should entail, predicated as they are on our shared culture. It may be that Canada should focus its trade policy by geographic proximity, but not geography alone. Canada’s trade policy should take account of geography, of shared business and trading culture, of common commitments and similar institutions, and personal, human relationships across frontiers. This means to recognize the “trade corridor” character of Canada’s international trade, as streams of products, services, and information moving within and through communities in geographic patterns according to a matrix or “culture” of trade agreements and treaties, statutes, delegated legislation, and custom that governs and guides trading relationships, institutions, and structures.   Russ Kuykendall is senior researcher with the Work Research Foundation (www.wrf.ca) and the assistant editor of Comment (www.wrf.ca/comment). He is a former speechwriter for Stephen Harper. rkuykendall@wrf.ca Russ Kuykendall Trade is more than the econometrics of international transactions in goods and services. The Canada-US trade corridors are illustrative of this. Canada-US trade corridors can point to what Canada’s trade priorities should entail, predicated as they are on our shared culture. It may be that Canada should focus its trade policy by geographic proximity, but not geography alone. Canada’s trade policy should take account of geography, of shared business and trading culture, of common commitments and similar institutions, and personal, human relationships across frontiers.

(Watch the conference presentation on video: Medicine, Professionalism & Conscience: Is Pluralism 'One Size Fits All'?)I don't think that anyone would deny that we live in a world that is permeated by a clash of worldviews1, in a society that preaches a complete separation of church and State; a society that feels threatened by a symbiotic cooperation between the latter, a relationship that is mutually enriching, as the divine exists within the secular. This is a reality that has been well illustrated to modern man by Tolkien's masterpiece The Lord of the Rings. What does it mean to be a healthcare professional in Canada today? Are we losing sight of the intrinsic goodness of the art and science of healing? And finally, is there room for differing views and philosophical ways of thinking, or is pluralism "one size fits all"? In this paper, I will explore the false dichotomy and growing lack of tolerance towards religious belief that permeates the medical profession in Western society. In the field of Healthcare, there are medical professionals today who desire to care for the sick without violating their own deeply held religious, moral, and ethical principles. For the most part, they are not seeking to impose their morality on others, but simply need to be able to live and work without compromising their deeply held beliefs. Sadly, there are those who seek to impose their views on others; those too who believe that a religious faith-informed conscience should be kept at home—has no place in professional life, but not so with non-religiously formed faiths. This indoctrination begins at the university level, where students are taught that their own principles should be subjugated to meet the desires of patients who must now be referred to as "clients". Indoctrination then continues as promulgated by ethics committees set up by Medical Governing Bodies. Highly influenced by public opinion, such codes of conduct promote one predetermined set of principles only, a "one-size-fits-all" idea of what it means to be a medical professional; that there is only one way to work, one model, one set of beliefs that must be revered and followed by all healthcare professionals. On certain issues of the day there are strongly contested viewpoints that are perfectly legal to hold. In a free and democratic society it is not the case that we are required to believe the same things. But what of the duty to serve? Ah, as Shakespeare said: "there's the rub". Some who hold to one side of a contested viewpoint seek not only to promote these views, but they also believe that they are the only valid views, and that everyone else should abide by them. In particular, healthcare professionals should lay aside all other norms of conduct, especially if these have any religious foundation, in order to accept the utilitarian, pragmatic worldview that others may hold as the only valid code of conduct. Thus, some healthcare workers may feel coerced to participate in procedures they find morally abhorrent.2 A recent article in the BMJ3 exemplifies just this. Alas, I am not the only one who likes to quote Shakespeare. Quoting the villain in Richard the III, a king who was known for his ruthless dishonesty, widely published Oxford ethicist Julian Savulescu writes, "Conscience is but a word cowards use, devised at first to keep the strong in awe". Conscience, he says, can be an excuse for vice or invoked to avoid doing one's duty. Furthermore "conscientious objection is wrong and immoral when the duty is a true duty"—and, may I ask, whose definition of true duty shall we use? Richard the III's ? Hitler's ? Savulescu's ? Both the Nuremberg4 trials and the horrific Rwandan massacres5, where physicians of one tribe felt obliged to kill their patients from another, tell the tales of the horrific consequences of blind obedience grave duty [to serve], Savulescu continues, objection should be illegal. He believes in fact, that a doctor's conscience has little place in the delivery of modern medical care, an anachronistic belief in my view, as never before in the history of mankind has there been greater need for a critical appraisal of modern medical technologies and for a clearer understanding of what it means to be human. Savulescu goes on to say that what should be provided to patients is defined by the law and by the patient's desires, and states bluntly that if people are not prepared to offer legally permitted care to a patient because it conflicts with their principles or beliefs, they should not be doctors.6 Furthermore, he believes that conscientious objectors must be punished through removal of license to practice and other legal mechanisms. He insists, as most politicians do, that principles and conscience have different roles in public and private life, thus advocating what I would call the "split personality syndrome". Finally, Savulescu believes (for he too is a believer, as is every conscious human being), in a neutral [value-free] practice of medicine, or so he thinks. Value-driven medicine, he says, is a door to a Pandora's Box of idiosyncratic, bigoted, discriminatory medicine. And so, the irony is that we must all follow his own bigoted ideology, a purely technocratic, legalistic approach to the practice of medicine. He himself has unwittingly opened up the Pandora's Box of which he warns his readers. There is no room in his world for the divine within the secular; no room, in fact, for a moral critique of medicine itself; his is an invitation to amoral medicine. He has forgotten that medicine is both a science and an art, the beautiful art of healing which has a long historical Hippocratic tradition behind it. His ethics does not even mention that which is at the core of medical practice, namely, the "doctor-patient healing-caring relationship".7 Among the many responses received by BMJ to Savulescu's article, one by Trevor Stammers, Senior Tutor in General Practice stands out8: ". . .if values have no place in determining medical care, on what basis does Savulescu attempt to impose his own moral values on conscientious objectors? The paternalism he so despises is only matched by Savulescu's own and his ideal of "statute-driven medicine" seems to me more ”idiosyncratic, bigoted and discriminatory' than the moral values he is so intolerant of." Scottish psychiatrist Everett Julyan also wrote to the BMJ9: "Extending the logic of Savulescu's argument suggests that if, for example, physician-assisted suicide was legalized, then all doctors would have a duty to help their patients kill themselves. Only those individuals who agree (or acquiesce) should be allowed to practice medicine. Extrapolating this, the medical profession would be made up of individuals without a conscience whose collective morality is markedly different from that of the patients they serve." The intolerant views of Savulescu, he says, hardly reflect the diverse views on a wide range of ethical issues in our society. Doctor Julyan speaks from first hand experience, as in 2000 he was turned down for a job by North Glasgow Universities for revealing in an interview that he would have nothing to do with training that would involve abortions.10 Another illustration of the growing mentality that "one size should fit all", is an article by Bioethics Professor R. Alta Charo in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine of June 2005 entitled "The Celestial Fire of Conscience—Refusing to Deliver Medical Care"11. Here the author assumes that there is only one acceptable "professional standard"—her own! This ethicist concludes that those who do not abide by the rules of her own ideological views should be willing to pay a price for their convictions. She writes: "What differentiates the latest round of battles about conscience clauses from those fought by Gandhi and King is the claim of entitlement to . . .. . . conscience without consequence". Professor Charo fails to give proper place to accommodation and would go for a "one size fits all" for all citizens. In my case, as a pharmacist unwilling to offer certain "services" for moral and professional reasons, this amounts to suggesting that I should be willing to lose my license or my freedom for not complying with her own set of moral standards. Charo believes that the medical professions should accept a "collective obligation" to provide that which is legal. This, she says, does not mean that all members of the profession are forced to violate their own consciences, but does necessitate ensuring that a system of referral is in place, so that every patient can act according to his or her own conscience just as readily as the professional can. What Charo does not realize, is that individual patients are not being forced to act against their own conscience when a service is denied them by an objecting provider. They are merely forced to visit a different provider, which may at most cause a little inconvenience. She also does not seem to realize that referral for a service that I cannot myself provide would be morally equivalent to providing it myself. Charo goes on to applaud the governor of Illinois who has forced all pharmacies, though, she says, not all pharmacists, to ensure access to services for all patients. What she does not mention, or perhaps realize, is that some pharmacists have been harassed and forced to quit their jobs because of this ruling. Finally, Charo believes that conscience is "a tricky business", with which statement I would agree; and she concludes by quoting C.S. Lewis (out of context, no doubt) to justify her own assumptions about the dangers of using ones conscience as a guide to universal truth. And so as you can see, my own profession of pharmacy is also bathing, if not immersed in an ocean of intolerance toward anyone who does not share the viewpoints upheld by the establishment as the only valid viewpoints. Professional pharmacy journals have painted dissenting pharmacists as being unethical for not providing services that go against their deeply held moral, ethical, and religious beliefs that life is sacred from the moment of conception until natural death. Interestingly, one person's ensuring that a client knows the risks of a particular medication can be portrayed by another as evidence of intolerance and bigotry. In a recent ironic twist of events, even pharmacists who do wish to provide the Morning after Pill have been portrayed as being unethical for asking women too many embarrassing questions. Citing the need for absolute editorial freedom, there have been worldwide protests sparked by the firing of the editors of the CMAJ responsible for publishing the article which is so critical towards pharmacists. Yet no one is incensed by the lack of objectivity and the oftentimes malicious slander that is printed in the name of journalistic freedom about pharmacists and other healthcare providers who wish to follow their consciences. For example, in May of 2000, the Canadian Pharmacists Journal published an article by an ethical advisor to the BC College of Pharmacists entitled: "Emergency Contraception and Professional Ethics".12 In this article, directed to disputes about the Morning after Pill, the author implies that there is no right to conscientious objection, and he insists that pharmacists must provide or refer patients for "recognized pharmacy services" despite moral objections. He not only claims that conscientious objection is not a right, but also that it is usually punished. Of course, this stems from his premise that because there are murderers, rapists, and thieves who do wrong by following an obviously erroneous conscience, then no one should have a right to freedom of conscience.13 Several people have written in response to Mr. Archer's piece- one of them is the chair of this conference, lawyer Iain Benson, Archer.14 The journal refused to print the rebuttal, and so to correct the errors, and for those who have not been given the rebuttal that has been distributed by concerned pharmacists at various conferences, it appears as though the ethical advisor's statements, which are driven by his own personal beliefs about the sanctity of life, should trump those of people who disagree with him on what is not, according to his own argument, a strictly scientific determination. In October 2004, the editor of the above Canadian national journal15, went so far as to say that pharmacists who cannot accept the dispensing of the Morning after Pill should practice other careers "that do not put them in conflict with patients' rights and the public trust". This editorial elicited a response from numerous pharmacists across the country and at least one lawyer.16 The editor began by stating that tolerance is a bedrock value of our democracy and that it goes both ways; yet in the next paragraph she contradicts herself by stating that the onus is on the healthcare professional to respect the religious beliefs of the patient, and not the other way around. There is often a complete failure to consider the duty of accommodation that all employers have in all settings. Many articles are written as if the only beliefs and autonomy that exist are those of patients or clients. This is obviously erroneous. At least the Canadian Medical Association does not make the same error, merely requiring the physician to inform the patient when his own morality would influence his recommendations. This Code should be the model for all health care settings. One Calgary pharmacist wrote: The editorial written in October's issue was an excellent demonstration of the discriminatory harassment to which conscientious objectors are subjected. It is clear that Ms. Thompson and people like her feel their morality is superior and are prepared to impose it on anyone disagreeing with them . . .In April 2000, an article entitled Ethics in Practice appeared in the official bulletin of the BC College of Pharmacists.17 It states that the College acknowledges that some pharmacists may have moral objections to providing recognized pharmacy services. Further on, it lists some of these future services as preparation of drugs to assist in voluntary or involuntary suicide, cloning, genetic manipulation, or even execution. As a compromise, the bulletin goes on, these pharmacists must refer patients to colleagues who will provide such services, and in the end deliver these services themselves if it is impractical or impossible for patients to otherwise receive them. Such statements as these show little or no knowledge of causality and the philosophical and theological basis for the refusal to refer—"No Mrs Jones, I cannot kill you, but Johnnie's pharmacy down the street will". The author of the article in the Bulletin then goes on to accuse conscientious objectors of lying to the public about existing services and of wanting to promote their own moral viewpoint. The moral position of an individual pharmacist, he writes, if it differs from the ethics of the profession, cannot take precedence over that of the profession as a whole. Who in this case, is imposing a morality on whom? These statements are a perfect recipe for the promotion of intolerance within the profession. The College not only refused to retract the derogatory statements, which suggested certain pharmacists "lie", but also refused to publish any other viewpoint, citing that the purpose of the Bulletin is to reflect official College policy. Let us examine for one moment the following notion: Who or what is determining what the ethics of the profession as a whole should be? According to Dublin-based ethicist Teresa Iglesias, traditional [Hippocratic] medical ethics and medical practice have been changed by the continuous chain of judicial rulings and court cases in the US, Europe, and Australia. Having once retained guardianship to the science and art governance, while "society" and "the law" are taking full control of the medico-ethical domain. This disintegration of self-governed medicine, has resulted in two strands of medicine: a conscience-governed medicine, and a law-governed medicine. Thus, she says, moral wisdom is in danger of being "legalistically" destroyed. And so just as the Medical Governing bodies have succumbed to endorsing "one size fits all" and over-riding what should be a plurality of views needing accommodation in a free and democratic society, the power of the association is invoked, unjustly, against the beliefs of practitioners. Because today's society values the set of views on medical ethics which hold that abortion is fine, the morning after pill is fine, and increasingly that euthanasia is fine, etc., this set of views seeks to guide the once independent medical establishment. The establishment in turn has set itself up as supreme moral authority, and all this without any regard for an individual professional's freedom of philosophical understanding of life, and freedom of conscience and religion.18 Seeing itself as the guardian of the public interest, the establishment thus seeks to protect society against any dissenting healthcare provider. Religiously informed conduct is increasingly viewed by medical governing bodies and associations as a threat to the public trust. There is a generalized atmosphere that "one size fits all" is superior to models of accommodation. Thus we see increasingly, arguments about the need to have and to use more-widely, conscience clauses by dissenting professionals. While admitting influence from other societal factions, the rejection of any sort of influence that carries a religious faith-based perspective is denying the medical establishment any wealth of input from its members if these views conflict with the organization's own worldview. It so happens that the Catholic Church, for example, has a long tradition of theological and philosophical teachings on the right conduct of medical professionals. Although the Church's teachings on the defense of human life they express the consequences of our nature: who we are as persons, what our boundaries or limitations are as human beings. Furthermore, christian morality is not about a set of dos and don'ts, but about a person. It is a way of life. Contrary to popular fear, I am not advocating for a Theocratic approach to medical ethics, where healthcare professionals would be preaching God and sin to patients. This would not be an appropriate application of cooperation between church and State. Rather, I am asking for recognition of the reality that the divine necessarily exists within the secular and is not foreign to it, and that religiously informed conduct is not just a private affair but has public dimensions. Whereas past pharmacy Codes of Ethics emphasized excellence in the performance of ones daily duties, today's Codes are increasingly concerned with patient autonomy, as though this were the highest good to strive for. Thus, irrespective of nationality, culture or beliefs, a pharmacist is told to conform to the new Codes of Ethics to ensure that the patient's interests are protected, or else to leave the profession. It is assumed that a pharmacist does not act in his patient's best interests when he refuses to provide a woman with a drug he deems harmful to herself and to her offspring in the case of refusal to dispense the Morning after Pill. No attention is paid to the fact that the client has all the freedom in the world to deal with the health professional of her choice. Although there is more and more pressure for a physician to do so, there is still no obligation to refer for abortions in Canada, but merely a requirement to inform the patient when the physician's own personal morality would influence his recommendations.19 He is neither forced to perform abortions, nor to refer for this procedure. On the contrary, the BC Pharmacy Code allows pharmacists to object to the provision of pharmacy services that violate their conscience only so long as they willing to do so.20 To date the British Columbia, Saskatchewan,21 and Ontario Colleges22 of Pharmacists require referral by the objecting pharmacist. The PEI Board of Pharmacists requires the individual pharmacist to pre-arrange access to an alternate source, while not conveying objections to the patient directly, but to the manager. On the other hand, Alberta, Manitoba and Nova Scotia require that the objecting pharmacist participate in a system designed to respect the patient's right to receive the service they want. Although referral is not an explicit requirement, these provinces do require that management prearranges it so that the customers get what they want in an alternate fashion. The Newfoundland Board of Pharmacy merely states that objections should be conveyed to the manager, and not to the patient. But what if the manager is the one who is the conscientious objector, as is my case? I think we need to be a little more creative as to how accommodation is worked out in order to give maximal not grudging accommodation to conscientious objectors. What most people do not realize is that referral for a service that I cannot myself provide, would be morally equivalent to providing it myself. In my particular case, I believe that giving a woman a Morning After Pill makes me a direct accomplice in the destruction of a human life should fertilization have taken place. Referral would also make me an accomplice. Contrary to popular belief, I am not seeking to block access to a product; I simply cannot be involved in its provision and the client is free to consult the professional of her choice. What is behind this patient-wishes as "trumps" approach? Is it not simply attempting to win ideological battles through the back door? One would be hard pressed to name another profession where this "service-seeker trumps" principle holds true. If a house owner tells the builder that he must construct the roof in such and such a way, and the builder in his opinion deems it unsafe, the principle of placing house owner autonomy above everything else could result in a disaster. I would like you to consider these thoughts: Our country was not built upon the principle of unbridled autonomy of the individual, but on that of solidarity and a sense of community that upheld the freedom of conscience and religion of each citizen. Autonomy is necessarily limited. A baby is less autonomous than an adult, but no less human, a paraplegic less so than a fully healthy person, but is not any less human because of his limitations. As ethicist Teresa Iglesias puts it, within the current liberal perspective, the idea of individual freedom is the external ethical principle which makes the "neutral" [value­free] use of medicine something medically "good". Medicine today, she says, has become a "service" governed by market forces, which gives the patient—now called a "client"—what he or she wants. The doctor is there to serve the autonomy of the patient. When this autonomy cannot be exercised, the doctor must carry out what is the most "benevolent" thing to do in the best interests of the patient, and this could include "mercy killing". The pressure is on full-blast for individuals, be they Theists or believers in the goodness of mankind, microcosms of the world in which they live, to separate their deeply held beliefs from the rest of their daily occupations: the result is a type of split personality, an individual living a sort of a disembodied faith that has no impact on what he does from day to day. History has shown that the erosion of personal conscience eventually leads to the erosion of professional conscience as well. We cannot have it both ways. Finally, there are differing conceptions of the human person at issue. In the one, certain kinds of moral beliefs are to the fore, such as that the primary issue is whether the person seeking health care is getting what they want. In the other, this demand is not asserted in isolation, but within a society made up of believers of various sorts. Accommodation or cooperation requires this second idea of the person and beliefs, and stands opposed to the "one size fits all" approach that seems to be battling for control of the health care professions. In conclusion, I would like to quote John Paul II whose recognition of human life as lived in an integrated manner comports with the idea of the freedom of religion as having a public dimension as well as a private one. We should ponder what John Paul II meant when he wrote: There cannot be two parallel lives in our existence: on the one hand, the so-called spiritual life, with its values and demands; and on the other, the so-called secular life, that is life in a family, at work, in social relationships, in the responsibilities of public life, and in culture. The branch, engrafted to the vine that is Christ, bears fruit in every sphere of existence and activity. In fact, every area of our lives, as different as they are, enters into the plan of God, who desires that these very areas be the places in time where the love of Christ is revealed and realized for both the glory of the Father and service of others.23Notes 1 And there is an excellent article by lawyer Nikolas T.Nikas, entitled "Law and Public Policy to Protect Health-Care Rights of Conscience" that explains this very well. For those who are interested, it was published in the Spring 2004 issue of the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly. 2 Please see www.consciencelaws.org 3 Savulescu, J. Conscientious Objection in Medicine. BMJ, Feb 2006; 332: 294-297 http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/332/7536/294 4 Wunder, M. Medicine and Conscience: The Debate on Medical Ethics and Research in Germany 50 Years After Nuremberg. Perspect Biol Med, 2000 Spring; 43 (3): 373-81 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10893726&dopt=Abstract 5 Gourevitch, Philip. We Wish to Inform you that Tomorrow we will be Killed with our Families: Stories from Rwanda. Picador publisher, New York 1998. http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Gourevitch/gourevitch-con0.html 6 It is not my intention to give a detailed analysis or critique here of Savulescu's paper. This has been more than well done by the 58 letters to the editor of BMJ that the article elicited, mostly from outraged medical professionals, medical students, ethicists, lawyers, philosophers, and patients. 7 Iglesias, Teresa. Medicine's Intrinsic Good. The Centre for Bioethics and Human Dignity. Quoted with permission. http://www.cbhd.org/resources/bioethics/iglesias_2003-09-09.htm 8 See: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/332/7536/294#127505 9 See: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/332/7536/294#127534 10 See http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4073810,00.html and also http://www.consciencelaws.org/Repression-Conscience/Conscience-Repression-14.html 11 Charo, A.R. The Celestial Fire of Conscience—Refusing to Deliver Medical Care. N Eng J Med 352: 2471­2473; 24, June 16, 2005. http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/352/24/2471 12 CPJ, May 2000, Vol.133, No.4, p.22-26. cannot be viewed online. 13 Letters to the editor of CPJ/RPJ. Feb 2000."Standards of Practice" by Frank Archer. 14 See www.consciencelaws.org for these articles: In Defense of the New Heretics: A Response to Frank Archer by Sean Murphy; "Autonomy", "Justice" and the Legal Requirement to Accommodate the Conscience and Religious Beliefs of Professionals in Health Care, by Iain Benson. 15 CPJ/RPJ Oct.2004, Vol 137, No.8. Can be viewed at http://www.pharmacists.ca/content/cpjpdfs/oct04/Editorial-October04.pdf or by going to http://www.pharmacists.ca/content/hcp/resource_centre/cpj/index.cfm and clicking of CPJ and then on CPJ issues. 16 These letters can be accessed at www.pharmacists.ca. 17 Bulletin of BC College of Pharmacists. Ethics in Practice. March/April 2000. page 5. http://www.bcpharmacists.org/resources/cpbc/pdf/marchapril2000.pdf 18 See NAPRA's model statement at http://www.napra.org/docs/0/95/157/165/179.asp 19 College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia endorses the Canadian Medical Association's Code of Ethics in refusal to treat: CMA Code of Ethics (updated 2004) policy no. 12. Inform your patient when your personal values would influence the recommendation or practice of any medical procedure that the patient needs or wants. http://www.cma.ca/multimedia/staticcontent/HTML/N0/l2/where_we_stand/CodeofEthics04.pdf 20 See Value VIII of Code of Ethics of Pharmacists of British Columbia at http://www.bcpharmacists.org/standards/ethicslong/ 21 Statement Regarding Pharmacists' Refusal to Provide Products or Services for Moral or Religious Reasons. Approved by Council June 23, 2000. Saskatchewan College of Pharmacists emphasizes that it would be improper and unethical conduct if the pharmacist used the opportunity to promote his/her moral or religious convictions. http://www.napra.org/pdfs/provinces/sk/skreference_manual/Pharmacists%20Refusal%20to%20Provide%20Products%20for%20Moral%20Reaons.pdf 22 See all the Provincial Pharmacy Licensing Bodies at: http://www.napra.org 23 John Paul II. Edited by Joseph Durepos. Go in Peace: a Gift of Enduring Love. Loyola Press April 2003, p.190 http://www.ecatholicism.org/page.cfm?Web_ID=1378

(Watch the conference presentation on video: Religion and Public Schooling at the Calgary Board of Education - A Case Study)Good afternoon. Only 30% of adult Canadian citizens, and of those in this room, have any direct contact with public schooling, and its been years, if not decades, since the other 70 per cent have set foot in a school or classroom and observed the life and times of public education. If they opened the door of one of our schools, walked down the hallways, and observed the learning going on in classrooms...they would immediately be struck by the stunning socio­demographic change in the population of our schools, and markedly so in large urban schools systems like Calgary public, from when they were students. Virtually all of our 240 public schools in the Calgary Board of Education have a rich kaleidoscope of cultural backgrounds, faith traditions and beliefs incarnate in the student body. Whereas twenty years ago only one per cent of our Kindergarten-Grade One students were ESL, today 20% of CBE Kindergarten to Grade One students are designated ESL learners. In just three short generations, our Canadian education world has been turned upside down, and we have gone from a universe where my grandfather, a Saskatchewan German-Mennonite farmer/minister/one-room public school teacher taught a homogeneous group of Mennonite children, daily reading the Christian scriptures to them, and leading them in the saying of the Christian Lord's Prayer, to an urban school universe where Buddhist, Sikh, Muslim, Judaic and Christian faiths are everywhere present among students; where Youth for Christ and Young Life Christian organizations run support programs for students, where prayer times and places are set aside for Islamic students, where one student may be wearing a "What Would Jesus Do" bracelet; another is wearing the hajib head scarf, or maybe a burka, and another a Sikh turban with perhaps a covered religious dagger. Perhaps the most defining characteristic of CBE schools apart from our outstanding academic success rates, is that they are multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-faith environments. The realities and dynamics of religion are a fact of life in our public education system. Given these realities, how would you "do" public school if you sat in the Chief Superintendent's Chair? How would you govern as a Board of Trustees when it comes to the growing religious fact in our schools? It's my privilege this afternoon to present a short case study review to this conference on the role of religion in the Calgary Board of Education known as the CBE. This is not a scholarly analysis, nor a personal polemic, but rather a descriptive overview of how the CBE treats this essential matter of the role of religion in public schooling. The CBE is one of Canada's largest public schools systems, with 100,000 students representing an incredible kaleidoscope of cultural backgrounds, faith traditions and beliefs. As with all public school boards, the CBE is a creation of the Alberta provincial legislature, through the province's School Act, and as such we are a creature and agent of the state, legislatively delegated with responsibility to provide instruction in the provincial curriculum. The Alberta School Act deals with the issue of religion in various sections:Section 50 permits a school board to prescribe religious instruction and religious exercises for its students. Given our multi-faith environment, the CBE Board does not prescribe such activity.Section 21 permits a school board to establish an "alternative program" that emphasizes a particular language, culture, religion, or subject matter. The CBE has chosen to not operate alternative religion or faith-based programs.Finally, Section 3 says the following: "All education programs and instructional materials used in schools must reflect the diverse nature and heritage of society in Alberta, promote understanding and respect for others and honor and respect the common values and beliefs of Albertans. For greater certainty, education programs and instructional materials must not promote or foster doctrines of racial or ethnic superiority or persecution, religious intolerance or persecution, social change through violent action or disobedience of laws.It is this Section 3 which undergirds the CBE's approach to religion and public schooling. As well, I should note that the provincial Department of Education has developed curricula on world religions. Now if I may provide some brief historical context for the CBE's involvement with religion. About 25 years ago our District established a Jewish and a Christian alternative school. This proved to be a very controversial decision at the time, with the next public school board election in the city fought over this very issue of religion and public schooling. An entirely new slate of trustees was elected and the new board proceeded to terminate the CBE's involvement with these two religious schools. Over the course of time a perception developed, perhaps grounded somewhat in reality, which the CBE was not religion-friendly. To some degree this perception was likely connected to certain local school decisions to de-link traditional religious-based holidays and school festivals from their religious roots, out of concern that celebrating religious holidays like Christmas was problematic, given the growing cultural diversity in our schools and the desire to be respectfully inclusive. As well, during the 70's and 80's there seemed to be a perception abroad that public schools generally were values-free and working at cross-purposes to some parent's expectations for the moral development of their children. Simultaneously, over this 25 year period a significant number of faith-based private schools began operating in Calgary, with about 20 such schools presently offering education programs to students. In late 1999 a reform-minded group of trustees was elected to govern the CBE and in 2001 we began to intentionally and publicly address this important matter of the role of religion at the CBE. Initially we considered the notion of introducing faith-based alternative programs or schools into the CBE, but instead decided to launch into a very comprehensive discussion with our stakeholders on the role of religion in public schooling. Far from being a controversial or divisive process, this public conversation proved to be very salutary. A broad spectrum of our publics became engaged with trustees on the issue, including Calgary religious leaders from major faith traditions, the Alberta Teacher's Association, CBE employees, parents and University of Calgary faculty. To kick-start this review, the Board established a trustees sub-committee on the Role of Religion, tasked with the responsibility of overseeing the public conversation, with support from a consulting firm contracted to facilitate the engagement process. Research was conducted on how other jurisdictions across Canada were addressing this issue. University of Calgary Religious Studies faculty members prepared academic papers. Various focus groups or hearing panels were convened. The public at large was engaged through an on-line survey which presented a spectrum of options on which the CBE wanted the public to consider and express their opinion. A back-grounder paper on religion and public schooling was prepared and circulated to the public as part of the overall conversation. A few copies of the back-grounder paper are available to you, and let me briefly read some sections of this document. Under the heading: Why are we doing this? "We want to engage our stakeholders in discussions about the role of religion in public education. As trustees we must make decisions about the leadership you expect from us on this controversial topic. Our purpose as a public education system is to provide the promise and the hope that all children will learn to the best of their ability and that they will learn how to fully take part in a democratic society. We accept our shared responsibility with parents and community to work towards our expected results.As a public system we must accept children of all faiths, and creeds, and show tolerance and respect for differences among faiths while at the same time encouraging inquiry and discussion in the continuing search for truth—the hallmark of a growing, rational being.We want to offer learning opportunities related to moral, ethical, spiritual and religious interests. As trustees we need to know what you think, what you expect of us, and what you will support when it comes to our public education system meeting the moral, ethical, spiritual and religious interests and needs of our students, their parents and society.The CBE accepts the principle that a valued objective in the education of children is understanding and appreciation of the spiritual, cultural and religious history of humanity."In this back-grounder survey document we laid out a spectrum of six possibilities of choice for the CBE. The first three were already being offered to some degree and included the following:To allow for informal, voluntary opportunities for students, such a clubs, prayer groups, etc.To allow for religious expression such as Christmas concerts, celebration of Hanukkah, Easter, Ramadan, etc.To incorporate opportunities to learn about morality and ethics in the regular curriculum.The second three choices were new and included the following:Offer courses on world religionsOffer religious alternative programsOperate religious schools.A few thousand Calgarians responded to the survey. There was considerable parallelism between the public survey results and the input received by trustees from the expert hearing panel. Less than 6% of survey respondents indicated that the CBE should not be offering any of these choices. This could be considered the anti-religion residual factor. There was overwhelming support for the CBE offering at least some of the six options, which was taken to mean that there was a significant measure of favorable support of a stronger role for religion in the CBE. The bulk of this interest seemed to be focused on expanding offerings to include courses on world religions, with a smaller interest in including religious alternative programs or schools. These results from the public survey were commensurate with the majority view of the hearing panel. Overall the results from our public conversation served to affirm the CBE in maintaining its current three options and indicated that consideration for introducing instruction on world religions was warranted. As a result of this public conversation process which stretched over a year, CBE trustees made a number of decisions.The Chief Superintendent was directed to offer curriculum related to world religions. Today two elective courses, World Religions at the Grade 12 level and Religious Meaning at Grade 11, are offered in a number of CBE high schools.The Religious Meaning course explores the needs and ways that humankind searches for religious meaning through text, practice, experience and ritual, and allows students to develop skills in researching and investigating religious-related topics.The World Religions course introduces students to an exploration of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism and provides students with an awareness of the nature, place and function of religions.The Chief was directed to form an advisory panel that included representation from Uof C professors and Calgary religious leaders to explore potential connections and possibilities of embedding the study of religion at the kindergarten to grade 9 level.And so today, for example , at the Grade 1-3 level the curriculum calls for:Helping students appreciate that students have different religious traditions and beliefs. Discussing how religion contributes to our identity. Asking students how we can show sensitivity and respect for the religious diversity in the school and community. Helping students recognize that beliefs and traditions may be different from our own. Asking students what religious celebrations, landmarks, symbols and clothing can we recognize in our community. Asking students how religion contributes to the development of the community and how religious diversity is expressed in the communityThe Chief was directed to clarify the CBE's administrative regulation on Religion in Education for principals, staff and parents. One reason for this was to ensure that it was clearly understood that the celebration of religious festivals (ie. Christmas programs, concerts, songs, etc.) was permitted.A few copies of the CBE administrative regulation of religion are available for those interested.This important regulation guides teachers and administrators to teach about religions, not to teach religious dogma; and provides guidance on how to treat religion in the instructional context, how to deal with religious holidays, a student's personal religious expression in school, religious objects and guest religious speakers.The Chief was directed to continue to pursue an explicit and intentional focus on character education. CBE trustees have made character education one of our explicit four ends for the CBE, along with academic success, personal development and citizenship education.The preamble to this Character End calls for students to be guided by their conscience, to act morally, to do what is right with wisdom and respect for others, and then goes on to identify particular character traits that would be universally supported by parents and religious groups, and which are grounded in religious scriptures. All schools are to intentionalize the development of character education, and trustees receive an annual monitoring report on this end. I should note here that one of the recent success stories for the CBE has been the establishment of our what we have called our Traditional Learning Centre schools, or TLC's. These schools combine a strong emphasis on teacher-directed learning, rigorous academics, second language instruction, with a very strong focus on character education, with all students wearing the TLC school uniform. A few thousand students are being educated at our TLC sites with a robust waiting list of interested parents and students. So, to begin to wrap up this overview, we could summarize the CBE's approach to religion and public schooling as follows:The CBE believes the religious fact is an integral part of human existence. Therefore it is a legitimate and necessary aspect of public schooling, and teachers are encouraged to involve students in an age-appropriate objective discussion of religious, moral and spiritual topics when relevant in the curriculum;We want to respect and encourage individual student religious expression and as such permit individual student and small group religious expression on school property;We want to engender respect and tolerance for religious cultural practices, therefore we encourage the celebration of religious festivals in schools, and permit the wearing of religious garb and religious articles;We want to foster an understanding of the human religious and spiritual impulse, and thus we offer explicit instruction in world religions and religious meaning courses, and incorporate learning about religion throughout various grade level curricula;At the same time, religious activities, which constitute public acts of worship or the propagation of dogma, are not permissible within an instructional context;Teachers, being in a position of authority, are not to influence students by stating their personal religious beliefs, but are encouraged to involve students in the objective discussion of religious or spiritual topics;School participation in charitable/compassion work coordinated by religion-based groups, such as Samaritan's Purse, is permitted and should be presented to students as a voluntary activity;The principal must make reasonable efforts to acknowledge major religious holidays observed by the school community;Individual students may pray publicly or say prayers before meals or exams as long as done in a non-disruptive manner;We want to respect the desire of various people and groups within society to foster awareness of religious traditions, and therefore we permit the distribution of religious scriptures to students on a voluntary basis by organizations like the Gideons who have been distributing the Christian scriptures to elementary school students for decades.In conclusion, five years ago the CBE waded into what could have proved to be some very turbulent waters, as we launched into a high profile, public conversation with CBE stakeholders. However, perhaps because of the extensive and respectful public engagement process undertaken by trustees, the CBE has not encountered any negativity on its approach to religion and public schooling, nor have we had to deal with any particular controversial issue. The curricular study of religion and the respectful treatment of religion and personal faith are now a hallmark of the CBE, which we believe has adopted a reasoned and publicly supportable stance on the matter of religion and public schooling. Thank you. Presented by Gordon Dirks, Chair Calgary Board of Education

(Watch the conference presentation on video: Threats to Cooperation Between Religion & the State in Canada Today)Wizard of Id by parker and hart—July 13, 2003 King addressing the populace from the balcony of the castle says: "You're violating the separation of church and state."One of the crowd shouts back: "what does that mean?"The King: "I dunno. It's just something we always say."Wizard goes into the bar; "Gimme three bourbons and a tankard of ale."The Bartender says: "What's wrong?"The Wizard replies: "I've just finished reading the constitution 15 times!"The Lawyer with his big top hat is also at the bar and says: "And?..."Wizard: "I can't find the phrase 'separation of church and state' anywhere"!The Lawyer sips his tankard of ale and says: "that's cause it don't exist!"Wizard: "Don't exist?" Then he continues: "You lawyers slather it about like it's pure doctrine!"The others in the bar all join in the chorus: "Yeah!"The Lawyer with his cane is preparing to leave and his parting shot is: "So? Would you guys like the king running your church?""So? Would you guys like the king running your church?" On the occasion of the Madrid Conference on European Security and Cooperation, (Sept. 1, 1980), Pope John Paul II stated: ... freedom of conscience and of religion ... is a primary and inalienable right of the human person; what is more, insofar as it touches the innermost sphere of the spirit, one can even say that it upholds the justification, deeply rooted in each individual, of all other liberties. Of course, such freedom can only be exercised in a responsible way, that is, in accordance with ethical principles ...Pope John Paul II coming from a phenomenologist philosophical background spoke of freedom of conscience and of religion being the primary and inalienable right of the human person and that it is the foundation of all other liberties. It is because he has a conscience that man should be free and that freedom, thus, must be exercised responsibly, that is to say, in accordance with ethical principles. Faith is oriented to the ultimate concern and purpose of human life. To deny religious freedom is to rob human persons of the ultimate meaning and direction of their lives. Constraining religious liberty diminishes our humanity. In its Declaration on Religious Freedom, the Second Vatican Council declared: "the right of religious freedom has it foundation in the very dignity of the human person, as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and reason itself." Catholic teaching on human rights is based on both reason and religious faith. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by many nations of the world, is based on human reason. Both the UN declaration and Catholic teaching root human rights in the dignity of the human person. The fact that both human reason and religious faith can lead to respect for human rights is evident in the collaboration of diverse actors and groups throughout the world who work to promote respect for inalienable and universal human rights. A commitment to human rights is not alien to any authentic quest for religious or moral truth because it flows from the very nature of the human person and emerges naturally in all authentic religious, moral and cultural traditions as they move to express more deeply the truth of human life. It is significant that nations with widely varying religious heritages have embraced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is also important to understand that full religious freedom is a rich reality with broad personal and societal implications. Religious liberty begins with the right to worship according to one's conscience, but it does not end there. Religious freedom covers a broad range of vital activities from freedom of worship to freedom of conscience, from the right to establish schools and charities to the right to participate in and seek to influence public affairs. Religious freedom is inextricably linked to other fundamental human rights such as freedom of association, freedom of speech and legal recognition of voluntary associations. Religious freedom is exercised by both individual persons and religious communities and institutions.How is all of this being played out in Canada to day—I would say the reviews are mixed. Revenue Canada—On June 15, 2004 I received a harassing telephone call from Mr. Terry De Marche from Revenue Canada Charities Division as a result of a complaint lodged by someone objecting to a Pastoral Letter in which I attempted to clear up some moral confusion engendered by former Prime Minister of Canada. In much of the secular media Prime Minister Paul Martin was portrayed as a "devout Catholic" even though his clarified position re abortion and same sex unions constituted scandal in the Catholic community and reflected a fundamental moral incoherence. n the pastoral I pointed out that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith offered guidance relative to the role religious faith should play in the 'public square'. The Note is a reminder to Catholic politicians of their duty to be morally coherent: "There cannot be two parallel lives in their existence: on the one hand the so-called 'spiritual life,' with its values and demands; and on the other, the so-called 'secular' life, that is, life in family, at work .... in the responsibilities of public life and in culture." (Note, 6). The person who lodged the complaint deemed that my letter contravened the Elections Act. During the telephone call, Mr. De Marche reminded me that I wasn't to engage in partisan politics, etc, pointing out that such actions were in contravention of the Elections Act and implying that my actions jeopardized my charitable tax status. I pointed out that I didn't tell anyone how to vote, that my letter was "pastoral" to my people on Catholic teaching and an attempt to clear up moral confusion. I asked him if pastoral letters were outlawed? He never answered that question. He talked about perception and I replied that I can't control the perceptions of all people in Canada, but have to assume that they can think, and can think critically and evaluate, and surely to God they can understand that I am not telling anyone how to vote here. He then asked if I was going to take the pastoral letter down from our diocesan web site? I answered "no, why should I?" Again there was no response to my question. He wanted to know if I was going to do anything else re the election? I said nothing was contemplated. He then said that he was gong to write a report for his supervisor or superior and that I might hear back from them again. I was left with the impression that this conversation didn't go the way he thought it would, i.e. I didn't fold, beat my breast, and say that I was sorry and that I would never do it again; but that his purpose had been served insofar as I was warned or threatened; and that I wouldn't do anything more and that he matter could simply be dropped. I never heard anything more directly on the matter. However his intervention prompted me to write another article for the Calgary Sun, entitled "Election—'Responsibility and Discernment'"outlining some key principles of moral and social teaching which function like a lens through which to examine and evaluate public policy and programs, e.g. respect for life, support for marriage and family life, the preferential option for the poor, and the common good. Nigel Hannaford of the Calgary Herald wrote an opinion piece on Saturday August 21, 2004 entitled ,"The Silent Pulpit," dealing with a March 29th luncheon meeting that took place between Revenue Canada spokesperson and lawyers for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Evangelical Fellowship. He concluded: "..Governments don't like challengers to the moral authority they claim for themselves.... there is no question about Ottawa's direction. An end to sanctuary. No praying to Christ at government events, no more Bibles for new Canadians, and making it a hate crime to condemn homosexual practices: Two Canadian prime ministers declaring their role as politicians supersedes their Catholic convictions. That's the context in which the two church lawyers were invited to chat with the tax collectors. They took heed, then gave their employer-churches correct advice on keeping their tax exemptions. The churches took it, and were quiet on the moral issues of the day. Something their Founder never was."Nigel's column prompted me to share my story with him, and that upped the ante considerably, leading to more media coverage and some interesting exchanges in the House of Commons. I am not going to bore you by reading all of the exchanges recorded in Hansard but I would like to give you something of the flavour of the dialogue between Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick and the Minister of National Revenue , Hon. John McCallum. BF "....It is however very disturbing when government uses the machinery of government, the powers of the state, to muzzle and shut down our most fundamental freedoms...."JM "... We know that the great majority of charities will conduct their activities within the law when they fully understand it. It is the job of the officials of the Canada Revenue Agency to help charities understand the rules so that they can easily comply. It is common practice for our officials to be proactive in dealing with registered charities and to provide guidance and assistance in helping them comply with the law..."We are sometimes called upon to discuss the issues of partisan political activities with charities. This can happen after receipt of a complaint or when an official notices that the rules re being pushed. In these cases, we always try to understand what the charity is trying to achieve and what it is planning on doing in the near future..."BF "... Men and ladies of the cloth deal with moral issue on a day to day basis, whether one is talking about war, family, marriage, just name it. They speak to these issues all the time because that it the nature of their occupation. It is really wrong that the state during an election campaign could tell people of the cloth to shut up, that they cannot speak on these issues during an election and to close down their churches or religion during the election period because the state does not like what they have to say on moral issues during an election campaign. That is wrong."Mr. Jeff Watson continued the exchange with Hon John McCallum. JW "... There is a pattern emerging from the Liberal government. A religious organization, such as the United Church of Canada or the Metropolitan Community Church, that agrees with the government on a moral issue, for example, same sex marriage, is free to publicly support the government..... A religious organization that disagrees with the Liberal government on a moral issue, same sex marriages, for example, is threatened by Revenue Canada Agency officials.... I have read the letter that was on Bishop Henry's website. I do not see here anything advocates a cause for voting or not voting for a particular candidate or political party. The minister owes us a much better answer than the first time around....JM "Madam Speaker, in general terms I reject the charge but the law, as have said before, does not permit me to refer to any conversation or even to acknowledge that such a conversation did or did not take place.... the Income Tax Act prohibits me from breaching the confidentiality of any tax payer, so I am unable to address any concerns they may have with regards to specific organizations."Finally I would like to cite the question asked by Mr. Richard Harris: "Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government threatened Bishop Henry of Calgary when he dared to talk about catholic teaching during the last election, and it did it using revenue agency's tax cops. When the bishop talked about these threats, Scott Reid, the Prime Minister's spokesman, called the bishop's comments "a ridiculous and unconscionable allegation". Scott Reid's attack on the bishop is despicable, and attack on his honesty and integrity.Will he be made to apologize, and will he be disciplined?"For those of you who don't know Scott Reid. He is the same person who said that parents couldn't be trust with monthly child care dollars as they would spend it on beer and popcorn. But I digress. Please note the technique: denial, obfuscate, hide behind confidentiality and if all of these fail, attack the person (ad hominen). Come income tax time, I fully expected that as a result of my little confrontation that I would be audited. It didn't really happen but I was asked to supply information relative to my 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2004 RRSP contributions. I am not claiming that there was a causal connection but I am happy to announce that after I complied with their request, I received a further $70.40 tax credit. In Canada , we are also experiencing "The trumping of freedoms". Religious belief is intertwined with our nation's history, the spirit of the founding fathers and mothers of our nation, our national anthem, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms which begins "Whereas Canada is founded upon the principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law." Immediately, the Charter proceeds to list our fundamental freedoms. The first one is the freedom of conscience and religion. The second is freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression. In the Supreme Court case, known as Big M Drug Mart case, Chief Justice Dickson established the nature of religious freedom in broad terms: "The essence of the concept of freedom of religion is the right to entertain such religious beliefs as a person chooses, the right to declare beliefs openly and without fear of hindrance or reprisal, and the right to manifest belief by worship and practice or by teaching and dissemination..." After asserting our fundamental freedoms, the Charter then begins to spell out rights—first democratic rights, then mobility rights, followed by legal rights, then equality rights , etc. Section 15 (1) reads: "Every individual is equal before and under the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability." More recently, not only has "sexual orientation" been read into the Section 15 (1) of the Charter, but the courts have ruled that protection for homosexual practices is part and parcel of the protection for "sexual orientation." Within the past couple of years, there have been a series of bizarre happenings. Human rights laws, designed as a shield, are now being used as a sword. I am not going to speak at length about any of these situations but would like to address the Alberta Human Rights Complaints lodged against myself. Carol Johnson and Norman Greenfield, each, and as far as I can determine independently of one another, filed a complaint against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Calgary and myself on the ground of sexual orientation in the area of "goods/services refused and terms of goods/services", and in the area of "publications, notices, signs and statements," based on my January 2005 Pastoral Letter in which I challenged one by one the standard arguments used to support same sex unions as the equivalent of traditional marriage. It is surprising that the Commission accepted the complaints on the basis of "good/services refused and terms of goods/services," as there was no explanation as to what constituted the goods or services refused, or their terms. Nor did the complainants set out the manner of discrimination in the areas. In short, although there was no evidence of denial of services as alleged, the Commission proceeded with the complaint. In the second area,"publications, notices, signs and statements," the evidence was a January 21st, 2005 Pastoral Letter signed by myself and issued form the Office of the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Calgary. Since the two complaints were substantially the same, I will spell out the particular of Mr. Greenfield's complaint: The following three statements were alleged to be discriminatory:a) "There are also historical, cultural, philosophical, moral and anthropological roots. The failure to attend to the heath of all the roots runs the risk of killing the tree and destroying the public good."b) "The principal objective in seeking same-sex "marriage" is not really even about equality rights. The goal is to acquire a powerful psychological weapon to change society's rejection of homosexual activity and lifestyle into gradual, even if reluctant acceptance."c) "Since homosexuality, adultery, prostitution and pornography undermine the foundations of the family, the basis of society, then the State must use its coercive power to proscribe or curtail them in the interests of the common good." The letters were published on the website of the Diocese, and republished in the media, "to incite hatred of a person or a class of persons, with the added intention of asking for this same group to be treated with contempt by the Government of Canada and parishioners of the Diocese."I want to make a few comments on each of these items. a) "There are also historical, cultural, philosophical, moral and anthropological roots. The failure to attend to the heath of all the roots runs the risk of killing the tree and destroying the public good." This one boggles my mind—where is the discrimination? The full quote is: "The Supreme Court has said that Parliament may redefine marriage, it has not said that it must redefine marriage to include same-sex couples. The Supreme Court Justices talk about reading the Constitution, "expansively," and that it is like a "living tree which by way of progressive interpretation, accommodates and addresses the realities of modern life." Nevertheless, I would suggest that there are more roots to the tree than simply the Charter of Rights and Freedom. There are also historical, cultural, philosophical, moral, and anthropological roots. The failure to attend to the health of all the roots runs the risk of killing the tree and destroying the public good."b) "The principal objective in seeking same-sex "marriage" is not really even about equality rights. The goal is to acquire a powerful psychological weapon to change society's rejection of homosexual activity and lifestyle into gradual, even if reluctant acceptance." Apparently, a gay activist can make such a statement but I am not permitted to do so. Writing on August 16, 2000, in the Chicago Free Press, homosexual activist Paul Varnell states: "The fundamental controverted issue about homosexuality is not discrimination, hate crimes or domestic partnerships, but the morality of homosexuality. Even if gays obtain non­discrimination laws, hate crime law and domestic partnership benefits, those can do little to counter the underlying moral condemnation which will continue to fester beneath the law and generate hostility, fuel hate crimes, support conversion therapies, encourage gay youth suicide and inhibit the full social acceptance that is our goal. . . So the gay movement, whether we acknowledge it or not, is not a civil rights movement, not even a sexual liberation movement, but a moral revolution aimed at changing people's view of homosexuality."c) "Since homosexuality, adultery, prostitution and pornography undermine the foundations of the family, the basis of society, then the State must use its coercive power to proscribe or curtail them in the interests of the common good." Each, in its own way, undermines the foundations of the family. My list was never meant to be exhaustive as the Catechism of the Catholic Church also mentions: divorce, fornication, rape, etc. The state obviously responds to each of these threats to family life in different ways as it exercises its coercive power. The government has a solemn obligation to protect, not re-engineer, an institution that is more fundamental to human life than the state. In a word, it must "build fences" to protect the institution of marriage. The coercive power of the state extends to traffic laws, tax policy, education curriculum, communication regulations, and a whole host of other areas including marriage. For example, in the case of marriage, federal legislation prohibits people from marrying if they are related linearly or as brother and sister, whether by whole blood, half blood or by adoption. Specifically: a woman may not marry her grandfather, father, grandson, son or brother. A man may not marry his grandmother, mother, granddaughter, daughter of sister. The time has come for the government of Canada to use its coercive powers to legislate that a couple being married must be one man and one woman. The letters were published on the website of the Diocese, and republished in the media, "to incite hatred of a person or a class of persons, with the added intention of asking for this same group to be treated with contempt by the Government of Canada and parishioners of the Diocese." Several times, I have written and sated: "It must be acknowledged that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard to others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law." This echos basic Christian teaching: "they must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided (Catechism of the Catholic Church (2358). The difficult balance is to hold onto both unconditional love and uncompromising truth. Despite the clarifications presented to the complainants, the Alberta Human Rights Commission and the media, on August 24, 2005 we proceeded to the next stage of the human rights process, Conciliation. This session is held "without prejudice" so what is said remains in the room and falls under the banner of confidentiality. When asked by the media re what transpired—I said: "Given the nature of my office, the importance of confidentiality, and my own personal reputation, I feel duty bound to adhere to the rules of the process, so I will not comment on what transpired, other than to say I am pleased with the outcome." Mr. Greenfield had asked me if he could speak to the media after the session. I said, "It's up to you but I'm not going to." Acccording to Rick Bell of the Calgary Sun, Mr. Greenfield said: "What I wanted to do is bring the issue to the media. There really is no other platform to do this, with the media selective in what sort of discussion they want to hear and the lack of public forums in the city for people like myself to go and talk about this issue.... I never had a problem withe bishop or what he preaching from the pulpit. I just had a problem with him asking our provincial government to use their coercive power to make sam-sex marriage illegal." Rick Bell went on to comment that the complaints, taken seriously by the human rights commission, caused substantial stress to Bishop Henry, faithful Christians and freedom lovers across the country, but it does not seem to have entered the equation for Mr. Greenfield or the commission. Moreover, the defense has cost the diocese and its contributors thousands of dollars. I believe that these complaints were an attempt to intimidate and silence me, the lodging of these complaints constituted a violation of my right of freedom of expression and freedom of religion guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedom, and has revealed a multitude of problems with the Alberta Human Rights Commission and its processes. Based on my experience, it is not difficult to point out a number of imbalances and flaws in AHRC's current operation such as the presumption of guilt until you can prove your innocence, the open ended time lines for dealing with a complaint, and unjust incurring of financial expenditures for the defendant in the simple event of a complaint being lodged. However, there is no punitive action imposed on the complainant as his or her legal fees, if there are any, are covered by the Commission. I would also agree with the recommendations made to the Government of Canada in the 1998 report tabled by Canada's Auditor General Denis Desautel reviewing the mandate of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, (his recommendations can easily be applied to the provincial counterparts), i.e. that the government should:provide for periodic reviews by Parliament of the relevance and impact of grounds of discrimination;clearly separate the Commission's role as promoter of human rights, investigator and conciliator of complaints, representative of the public interest and advocate for an expanded interpretation of the Canadian Human Rights Act;provide for greater transparency in appointment to the Commission and Tribunals;establish statutory deadlines for the receipt and disclosure of information to and by the Commission;ensure that specific standards are established and followed that safeguard the reliability, impartiality and transparency of the investigation, conciliation and decision-making processes;require clear, complete and timely disclosure of reasons for decisionsI would also have liked the Commission to make a public statement that as of November 1, 2005, both of the complaints against me were dropped. "So? Would you guys like the king running your church?"—To which I, for one, emphatically respond: "No way!"

(Watch the conference presentation on video: Politics Between the Earthly City and the City of God in Christianity)Ever since Jesus stated his kingdom was not of this world, Christians have been struggling to determine the appropriate relationship between political power and the church. Responses to this problem have ranged from one extreme to the other. One extreme is a total rejection of political authority as having any kind of moral purpose. This was the view of many early Christians during the persecutions under the Romans, and continue today among groups who take their bearings from the Schleitheim Articles, as well as some conservative Protestants who have washed their hands at the culture wars by retreating into moral enclaves insulated from the broader, and corrupted, modern society. I will call this view of politics as the propter peccatum view ("because of sin"). This perspective views politics as the result of human sinfulness and the task of political authorities is restricted to restraining the wicked, and not to instilling anything like civic sense of virtue and concern for the common good. The other extreme is often referred to as the Constantinian view, named after the first Christian emperor of Rome, Constantine. Despite being in some way conceptually opposed to the propter peccatum view, it is also its consequence. Constantinianism says that even though politics is itself immoral, one cannot get away form seeking moral guidance, and the church must be the institution to guide the state and its citizens. This also means that the church necessarily gets itself entangled with the raison d'état of the state. Much of church-state cooperation during the Middle Ages followed this pattern, and the contemporary doctrine of church-state separation in liberal democracies is mostly a reaction against this arrangement. However, the Constantinian view has another dimension to it. The church's entanglement in political affairs ends up increasing the state's prestige and power. As the church gets too distracted with political imperatives, those very imperatives become sanctified by the sacred institution, the church, handling them. As the church retreats, the state takes over the now sanctified political imperatives and then makes its own moral claims upon human beings that the now weakened church used to claim. One could summarize this historical sketch as the difference between medieval church dominance over the state that gets replaced by modern dominance over the church.1 The current controversies between church and state move within this Constantinian matrix, and this paper suggests some ways to think outside this box. When the faithful hear supporters of the secular Constantinian state advocate changing the definition of marriage or denying tax-exempt status to religious organizations for defending their rights, they hear the divinized claims of the Constantinian state. On the other hand, secularist supporters of the divinized state think Christians make their own Constantinian claims when they argue for anything else besides a strict separation of church and state. They would regard—wrongly—any cooperation between church and state a departure from the fundamental principles of liberal democracy. A way to untangle this mess is to think through some of the limitations of the Constantinian position in both of its dimensions, which includes considering how the claims of Christians can be made intelligible to non-Christians. This will be done by considering the ideas of two non-Constantinian political thinkers, St. Augustine of Hippo and Alexis de Tocqueville. The former was a critic of political self-divinization of both pagan and Christian Rome, and the latter was a critic of political self­divinization of the modern liberal democratic state.Augustine Augustine wrote his magisterial City of God shortly after the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410, as a response to accusations by Roman aristocrats that Christians were to blame for the sack.2 They claimed Christian otherworldliness and humility made them too meek to be patriotic citizens willing to defend their fatherland. In response, Augustine claimed that Christians make the best kinds of citizens because their religion prepares them better to practice justice and love. Left unchecked, politics has the tendency to divinize itself by laying total claims upon the moral lives of individuals. Augustine pushed back at this divinization but still admitted politics lays a moral claim upon us. His challenge, like ours, was to clarify the nature of this moral claim. Augustine developed two symbols to express the tension between the Christian life and the earthly life: the city of God and the earthly city. These do not represent specific institutions, such as the Christian church versus Rome (or Canada), but rather two different types of soul. Members of the city of God love God at the expense of themselves, while members of the earthly city love themselves at the expense of God. All human beings must struggle to have the love of God dominant over the love of self. Because the struggle is inner, one cannot say with finality whether someone is a member of one city or the other. Augustine observed that Christian churches are filled with members of the earthly city. He objected to claims, such as those made at the time by the Donatists, that mere membership or communion is sufficient for salvation. He also suggested some non-Christians could be members of the city of God, including the Greek philosopher Plato and the Roman general Regulus. Augustine saw in Plato a genuine love of the transcendent Good which Augustine took to be equivalent to the Christian understanding of God. While Plato and his philosophical successors could not know Christ, Augustine saw in some of their metaphysical speculations a readiness to view the Good as incarnate. Regulus kept his oath to the enemy Carthaginians in a prisoner exchange in which he assented to them executing him. Augustine saw in his keeping of the oath, his selflessness, and his love for the common good, a noble model for Christians to look up to, and then to surpass.3 As these examples show, the important question is not that of idly speculating membership of either city, but in determining the meaning of these two loves and to orient oneself to the higher one. For Augustine, love of God gets primarily expressed through loving one's neighbor. Interestingly, he thought Scripture is in agreement with the highest ideals of friendship among the Greek and Roman philosophers.4 For Augustine, as for Plato and Cicero, the standard for any ethical and political theory is determining the extent to which it recognizes and encourages friendship. For these thinkers, politics necessarily falls short of fulfilling our deepest spiritual longings because it is not about friendship. When the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, was a mere commentator of texts, he observed that Augustine criticized politics because it is insufficiently social.5 This is why his great book is titled, City of God, and not The Isolation of the Solitary Mystic. The view that religious experience is friendship, and not solitary, is what distinguishes Augustine from modern Christianity and modern liberal thinking. For instance, Canadian scholar Charles Taylor (also a critic of liberal individualism), referring to theologian William James, describes the modern religious experience as standing on a cusp, "about what it's like to stand in that open space and feel the winds pulling you now here, now there."6 And so, for Augustine, the goal of religious organizations is to inculcate the life of friendship in which friends recognize each other as the image of the Good and of God, share the Good, and tell each other stories about their mutual encounters. Augustine saw greater agreement on friendship between Scripture and the ancient philosophers than later Christians, especially Protestants, who either forget about friendship or are hostile to it. Martin Luther and John Calvin, for example, never discuss friendship in any meaningful way. One of the reasons Canadian Christians struggle in making a public case against same-sex marriage issue is because they too have forgotten the language of friendship. Their emphasis on the sinfulness of homosexual behavior, and their language of "thou shalt not," eclipsed the positive good of friendship with which Christian and non-Christian thinkers have contrasted homosexual behavior.7 As we shall see with Alexis de Tocqueville, Christians are more effective making their case among liberal democrats by serving as yea-sayers of a higher good, and not as nay-sayers of sin; they need to recall Rabbi Novak's insight that the Decalogue's prohibitions also point toward a positive definition of human dignity.8 Even so, while Augustine agrees with his non-Christian friends, Plato and Cicero, that friendship is the highest good of human life, he did not think political life could itself reach as high as the noblest of friendships. Instead, politics can aspire to create the conditions in which the highest kinds of friendships can be cultivated. These conditions include the habits of just conduct, fair-dealing, and trust. Put in terms of ancient political philosophy, justice precedes and is lower than friendship, but at the same time one cannot expect someone to practice fair-dealing when that person is not practiced in friendship.9 While maintaining contracts and promises do not rise to the level of deep acts of sacrifice and love required by friendship, we are more likely to maintain those contracts and promises if we are the sort of person habituated to act with generosity and love. Thus, Rome, Canada, or any political society cannot be identified with either the city of God or the earthly city. The two cities are first and foremost symbols for opposed longings in the soul: love of God and love of domination. As such, Augustine thought most political societies reside someplace between because, like churches, they are filled with people belonging to both cities. Put another way, politics and religion are always interconnected because both are where the manifold of human longings and ambitions get expressed in their most comprehensive form. Augustine sometimes gives the impression he thought politics is propter peccatum—due to sin. He relates a famous meeting between Alexander the Great and a pirate he had captured. Alexander chides the pirate for terrorizing the high seas. The pirate responds by claiming that he, the pirate, only does on a small scale what Alexander does on a grand scale. Augustine comments on this episode: "And justice removed, what are kingdoms except great robberies" (City of God, 4.4). While Augustine's gloss has been read as a reflection of his general attitude toward political life, and as grounds for claiming that Christians must either confront or withdraw from politics, the determining idea in this statement is in the first clause: "And justice removed." As it happens, Augustine thought justice is never removed from political societies, regardless of how bad they are. Political societies always reflect a higher order and contain at least a modicum of justice within them. A political society with absolutely no justice would be no society at all. It would be anarchy or wilderness. Even a gang of pirates requires at least some degree of fair dealing among them. The less justice in a society, the more likely that political society, like Alexander the Great, would be committed to the life of exploiting and dominating others. The best type of political society is a kind of friendship, which Augustine expressed by comparing a well-ordered city to one of King David's songs: "For the rational and moderate harmony of diverse sounds insinuates the compact unity of a well-ordered city" (City of God, 17.14). A just political society would respect the dignity of each individual, as when he compares a just city to a well-constructed sermon: "for each single human being, like one letter in a sermon, is as it were the element of a city or kingdom, however wide is the occupation of land" (City of God, 4.3). Augustine was enough of a realist to understand most cities at most times do not meet these high ethical standards. However, he regarded this as a matter of falling-short of their own goal of obtaining a political friendship based on justice, common stories, and experiences. We learn from Augustine a way of thinking outside the restrictive dichotomy of propter peccatum and Constantinianism. One can be skeptical of the moral claims of politics without dismissing them altogether. One can affirm a moral ethic that is suitable for politics that Christians and non-Christians can share, and therefore share a common citizenship while each faith group works out its own unique way to salvation. Following Augustine, one can defend a cooperation of church and state without falling back on the misleading canard that Canada was, or remains, a "Christian nation" because the symbol, "Christian nation," is beside the point.10Tocqueville Alexis de Tocqueville traveled throughout the United States in the 1830s and published his findings in his monumental Democracy in America, which remains today the classic account of the moral aspirations, and dangers, of liberal democracy.11 His insights pertain to democratic rule in general, and are not restricted to the United States. For instance, one of Canada's most notable scholars of Tocqueville is former Liberal Cabinet Minister Stéphane Dion, who drew from Tocqueville's thinking to assert liberal principles against Québecois separatism.12 Tocqueville's relationship with Christianity was complicated, as one would expect with a major figure of the French Enlightenment. Evidence suggests he died without being in full communion with the Catholic Church. However, his biographer observes his faith was imbued with the skepticism a Jansenist pietist would hold toward religious dogma and toward metaphysical certainty which he shared with his philosophical hero, Blaise Pascal.13 Tocqueville wrote that religion has a paradoxical relationship with the liberal state. On the one hand, the great achievement of liberal democracy was its legal separation of political from religious power. On the other hand, the legal separation of church and state requires a social and cultural cooperation between the two. Legal separation allows religion greater freedom to find its own authentic prophetic voice, which therefore enables citizens to restrain the moral claims of the state, thereby ensuring limited and free government. On the other hand, Tocqueville also argued that of all types of regime—including monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy—it is democracy that requires the greatest amount of moral virtue from its citizens. In terms of moral action, it is easy to be a subject of a monarchy because one simply needs to obey the monarch's demands. Being a citizen of democracy demands self-government, and thus moral judgment, which is considerably more difficult to practice. Being a subject of a monarch simply requires moderation which gets expressed in acts of obedience toward the monarch. Being a democratic citizen demands practical wisdom, courage, justice, as well as moderation. This heightened moral demand on democratic citizens depends on a close social and cultural cooperation with religion. Being a democratic citizen especially demands religious faith for basic three reasons. First, public opinion is so much stronger in democracy than in other types of government. It is one thing for a despot to attempt to indoctrinate you. A healthy skepticism toward the powers-that-be can limit that. But what if the powers-that-be represent you? What if the voice of the majority crowds out your own conscience? So much more difficult it is to dissent against your friends and neighbors and seemingly everyone around you, than your unrepresentative ruler. He writes: "kings often make one obey, but it is always the majority that makes one believe" (DA II.1.5). This is why Tocqueville regarded public opinion a more insidious and seductive tyrant than older forms of tyranny. For this reason, Tocqueville thought that the most important task for liberal democrats, and especially members of religious traditions, is to create and sustain civil associations—those groups, organizations, colleges, churches, unions, and parties that we belong to and whose purposes help to challenge and reinvigorate political debate. Religious associations, including churches, schools, and charities, are especially crucial voices of dissent against public opinion because they take their authority from moral sources older and higher than that of public opinion. Public opinion, guided by a form of enlightened self-interest, inclines toward seemingly pragmatic technical solutions to public policy, and thus avoids the deeper moral concerns in which religious traditions are well-versed. Tocqueville referred to the "mother science" of establishing and maintaining civil associations as a "holy enterprise" to provide a counter-balance against the attitude of vox populi, vox Dei taken by public opinion. The "mother science" would be difficult because it obliges religious associations, as Augustine did centuries earlier, to find ways of engaging culture in a constructive fashion. Neither domination nor withdrawal is an option. Second, religious associations draw from traditions of friendship teachings that run deeper than the utilitarian teaching of enlightened self-interest that liberal democracy usually draws on. For Tocqueville, liberal democracy teaches us to avoid harming others. This is sufficient for a day-to-day ethic of mediocrity, but it hardly suffices for the hard cases of moral reasoning we are often obliged to decide. Christian organizations lead by example in teaching faith, hope, and charity, in addition to justice, practical wisdom, courage, and moderation. But because liberal democracy is in part a product of the philosophical Enlightenment, the prophetic voices of religious organizations must also appeal to rational argument. They must provide a positive teaching, and justification, for their interventions into public debate. They must show why their way is better than that of others. Claiming "because God says so" or "because Scripture says so" is a non-starter, and a needless one at that, as the example of Augustine shows. Both Tocqueville and Augustine agree that a fundamental part of political persuasion, in addition to rational argument, consists of showing concretely and by example how one's way of life promotes happiness. For instance, Tocqueville observes that the surest way for religion to have a salutary effect on political society is for governments to act as if they really believe religious precepts. These include the immortality of the soul, which, among the manifestations of this belief, promotes a concern for the future of society and of mankind that challenges the general democratic inclination to base public policy on short-term considerations (DA 2.2.15). The presence of individuals acting faithfully and justly is more effective than exhortatory arguments made to democrats already skeptical of religious and "metaphysical" claims. Religious groups need to tell their own stories to have their presence appreciated in society. Third, despite the tendency of liberal democrats to act on short-term considerations, democracy makes its own faith-claims. One frequently hears references to progress and to the adjective "progressive" is meant to signify someone who is tolerant, cosmopolitan, open-minded, creative, and generally on the left-wing of the spectrum. However, faith in "progress," in a future that is evermore perfect than what has come before, is just as much based on an act of faith than faith in the death and resurrection of Christ because it postulates a perfect utopian society—a democratic utopia—that our current elites are supposedly bringing about. Georgetown University political theorist Patrick Deneen summarizes the condition of this "democratic faith": If faith is a belief in that which is unseen, then it may be that democracy is as justifiably an object of faith as a distant and silent God. This is particularly the case for those who perceive a radical gulf between that system of government that we now call democracy—rife with apathy, cynicism, corruption, inattention, and dominated by massive yet nearly unperceivable powers that belie claims of popular control—and the vision of democracy as apotheosis of human freedom, self-creation, and even paradisiacal universal political and social equality that coexists seamlessly with individual self-realization and uniqueness. In absence of such a faith, ambitions might wither amid cruel facts and hopes dissipate in the face of relentless reality.14According to this analysis, democratic faith in an immanent democratic utopia becomes more aggressive when other forms of faith, including religious faith during times of secularization, wane. Or as Tocqueville and others have observed, faith remains constant even while the objects of faith change. So, for Tocqueville, liberal democrats are characterized by a tendency to place their faith in a utopian hope for a society based on perfect equality and individual self-realization and creativity. Christians can do something to moderate that utopianism by advancing their own ideas of political society. But they need to do it in such a way that appeals to common sense, natural reason, and, finally, to witness. Therefore, opposing the democratic faith in progress with the Christian hope for redemption will not be as effective as simply pointing out the deficiencies of the faith in perfect equality and self-creativity. Of equality, Christians can simply observe that democrats cannot overcome the diversity of talents that nature has given to everyone. The perversity of trying to obtain perfect equality can be seen in a play, The Assemblywomen, by the ancient Greek comedian, Aristophanes, who points out that perfect equality would demand forced coupling of beautiful and ugly people, especially since contemporary economists have proven that the so-called beautiful have more wealth and career-success than the so-called ugly.15 Of expressing individuality, Christians can simply observe that loving another depends on perceiving something to share. Assertions of individuality aggravate the loneliness and disconnectedness people regularly experience.16 Our culture is saturated by assertions that the most intimate form of sharing is physical, and so it has lost an older language of friendship that enables people of the same sex to express their intimate—but not sexual—love for one another. It is fashionable today to consider Abraham Lincoln a homosexual because he often slept in the same bed with his friend, for whom in his letters he also expressed profound love. Rather than fruitlessly speculating on private desires, some insightful commentators have conversely observed Lincoln's ability to love his friends profoundly—in Platonic fashion—is precisely what made him a great president because it enabled him to divine the good in his political rivals, and transform them into his friends.17 At the risk of offending the ideologues of sex in our society, our sexual liberation comes at the cost of becoming illiterate in love and friendship.18 Our sexual liberation also prevents us from thinking meaningfully of the common good. Additionally, historian Mark Noll has called Lincoln the greatest theologian in nineteenth-century America, which suggests Lincoln's example provides insight not only about understanding how our moral commitments stand with the common good, but also how our religious commitments stand with the common good.19Conclusion Augustine and Tocqueville teach Christians that they must practice special insight in balancing the claims of God and of Caesar. God affirms the claims of Caesar, and the proponents of God's claims must also make their case to Caesar in a way Caesar can understand while showing Caesar his authority extends only so far. Fortunately, God has given Christians the means to do that without undermining their faith. One does not undermine faith if one depends on reason; one does not undermine Scripture if one appeals to science. Faith and reason, Scripture and science, are part of God's creation. Because God wants Christians both to know him and to love him, there is no impiety in understanding creation, especially as it pertains to living a righteous life. Augustine once chided his fellow Christians for treating Scripture as a source of physics or literal history. He warned them not to be so impious in reading Scripture in such a limited way. Moreover, treating Scripture for what it is not is a great way to get non-Christians to ridicule the faith, which is the last thing Christians should want. Instead, Augustine thought to know God is to know as much of Him and of His creation as one can possibly know, even if non-Christians supplied the insights.20 He liked to encourage Christians to emulate the Israelites by stealing gold from the Egyptians. To that end, it comes as no surprise that the problem of cooperation of church and state is first and foremost a problem of education. As Plato argued centuries ago, politics is the cultivation of souls and this means first and foremost one must spend their life seeking what the good life is about. In the middle of the twentieth-century, Simone Weil stated the problem concisely for Christians worried about reason possibly conflicting with their faith. She stated that before we seek Christ we must seek Truth, because before Christ is Christ, He is Truth. If we diligently and prayerfully seek Truth, we will not go far before falling into the arms of Christ.21 These thinkers and prophets teach Christians their willingness to think of church-state cooperation should not be limited by their own doubts about the life of reason.Notes 1 The story of this search for balance has been told many times. Most recently, Michael Burleigh, Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics from the French Revolution to the Great War, (New York: HarperCollins, 2006). For a more theoretical treatment, see Eric Voegelin, Modernity Without Restraint: The Political Religions; The New Science of Politics; and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism, Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 5, ed., Manfred Henningsen, (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000). 2 Augustine, City of God Against the Pagans, trans., R. W. Dyson, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). I have provided a fuller account of his political thought in John von Heyking, Augustine and Politics as Longing in the World, (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2001); "Disarming, Simple, and Sweet: Augustine's Republican Rhetoric," in Talking Democracy: Historical Perspectives on Rhetoric and Democratic Deliberation, eds. Benedetto Fontana, Cary J. Nederman, and Gary Remer, (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2004), 163-86; "Soulcraft, Citizenship, and Churchcraft: The View From Hippo," in Cultivating Citizens, eds. Dwight Allman and Michael Beaty, (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2002), 29-42. 3 On Plato and God, see City of God 9.16 and 10.12. On truth as incarnational, see Confessions 7.9 and City of God 10.29. On Regulus, see City of God 1.15 and 1.29. 4 Carolinne White, Christian Friendship in the Fourth Century, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 5 Rowan Williams, "Politics and Soul: A Reading of the City of God," Milltown Studies, 19/20 (1987): 55­72. 6 Charles Taylor, Varieties of Religion Today, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), 59. Taylor's assessment of modern religious experience as individualistic is confirmed by Peter Emberley's study of the religious views of Canadian baby-boomers (Divine Hunger: Canadians on Spiritual Walkabout, (Toronto: HarperCollins, 2002)). 7 A key exception to this is the essay on same-sex marriage and friendship by noted Dante scholar, Anthony Esolen, "A Requiem for Friendship," Touchstone Magazine, September 2005. See also my "Why Exclude Oedipus?: On the Statist Incoherence of Same-Sex Marriage," The Interim, September 2006. 8 David Novak, "Human Dignity and the Social Contract," in Recognizing Religion in a Secular Society, ed., Douglas Farrow, (Montréal-Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2004), 66. 9 The relationship between justice and friendship is complex and paradoxical. For a succinct comparison, see Robert Sokolowski, "Phenomenology of Friendship," Review of Metaphysics, 55 (March 2002): 451­70. 10 Frederick Vaughan explains the problematic role the symbol, "nation of Christians," has had in Canada's constitutional history in The Canadian Federalist Experiment: From Defiant Monarchy to Reluctant Republic, (Montréal-Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2003), 134-51. 11 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans., Harvey Mansfield, Jr., and Delba Winthrop, (University of Chicago Press, 2000). Hereinafter DA. 12 Stéphane Dion, "Tocqueville, le Canada français et la question nationale," Revue Française de Science Politique 40(4) (1990): 501-520; "Tocqueville and the Civic Virtues of Nationalism," Notes for an address by the President of the Privy Council and Minister of Intergovernmental, Canadian Political Science Association, Quebec, Quebec, July 29, 2000 (http://www.pco­bcp.gc.ca/aia/default.asp?Language=E&Page=pressroom&Sub=speeches&Doc=20000729_e.htm) (last accessed: August 21, 2006). 13 André Jardin, Tocqueville: A Biography, trans., Lydia Davis, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 62-3, 528-33. 14 Patrick J. Deneen, Democratic Faith, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), xvi). Janet Ajzenstat criticizes a Canadian version of democratic faith (which she refers to with its more conventional term, "romanticism") in, The Once and Future Canadian Democracy, (Montréal-Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2003). 15 Daniel S. Hamermesh and Jeff E. Biddle, "Beauty and the Labor Market," American Economic Review, 84(5) December 1994: 1174-94. 16 Miller McPherson et al., "Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades," American Sociological Review, 71 (June 2006): 353-75. 17 Scott W. Johnson and John H. Hinderaker, "A Genius for Friendship: Lincoln as Lawyer," The Claremont Institute, June 30, 2000 (http://www.claremont.org/writings/000630hinderaker_johnson.html). See also, Doris Kearns, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005). 18 See Esolen, "A Requiem for Friendship." 19 Mark A. Noll, America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 422-38. 20 For example, Augustine would be able to converse with Charles Darwin when the former observes the tendency of weaker creatures to take on the attributes of stronger ones (City of God, 12.4). 21 Simone Weil, Waiting for God, trans., Emma Craufurd, (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1951), 69.

(Watch the conference presentation on video: Theocracy and Pluralism in Judaism)The word theocracy gets thrown around a great deal, more often than not by people who are convinced that it has a very insidious meaning. "Theocracy" is usually used as a scare word to remind people of the horrors of a society run by clergy. Those who fear a theocracy in Canada or a theocracy in the United States, usually fear somebody imposing his or her religion on everybody else, and claiming absolute political authority for their clergy. That is not what the word "theocracy" originally meant. Theocracy comes from two Greek words, theos and arche, and it means the "rule of God". The term was coined by the ancient Jewish historian Josephus, writing around the time of the Jewish war against Rome and the destruction of the Temple, around 66 AD. He used it to characterize the type of polity that the Torah as the revealed Law of God was designed to govern, with God as the sovereign (and not just symbolically like the Queen is the sovereign of Canada) as the immediate source of law by which the society is governed, a law which is totally sufficient to govern all areas of human life and to direct the state nationally and internationally. But Josephus understood quite clearly that this was not the reality of his time certainly, when the Jews were for the most part living under the Roman Empire. He clearly understood, for the most part, that theocracy seems to be more of an ideal than an actual reality. In other words, the complete rule of a society, completely under the direction of revealed law received directly from God, never fully took place in ancient Israel even though it was very much a desdeiratum. But the question remained how theocracy could be implemented. I mention this in the context of what we are talking about at this conference, because many think that the legitimacy of a secular realm is something that Jews and lots of Christians as well had to accept but really didn't want to accept. But surely, religious Jews and Christians should challenge that opinion. Now what I mean by a "secular" realm is not what many secularists think is a secular realm. For many self proclaimed secularists in our society, a secular realm is one in which the name of God cannot be uttered in public or even alluded to in public. Yet that is not my notion of secular realm. Indeed, if that is what a secular realm is, then I as a traditional Jew could not be part of such a realm in good faith, and I consider myself a part of the realm here in Canada and I consider it something that I do in good faith. So, I need to look for other definitions of what a secular realm is in order to affirm it and contribute to its welfare honestly. I would define a secular realm to be a polity or system of government that is not directly dependent on any historically revealed law. Thus when one makes public arguments in this kind of society, when one advocates public positions, one cannot do so, or one cannot do so and expect to be listened to, if one says that one should accept this policy because it is written in the Bible or in the Koran, or because it is written in any revealed text. One can, however, argue that certain norms that these revealed texts present are universal. They apply to all people, not just the members of this particular religious community, and that is because the reasons for these laws are evident to rational people. We cannot say that these laws are valid because of divine revelation. The most we can say is that we first learned these laws from a tradition stemming from divine revelation in history. I think if one understands this notion of the secular, then one is not imposing his or her religion on anyone else, and one need not keep his or her commitment to a religious community/religious tradition based on revelation in the closet. Now, in order to understand how this can be done by a Jew with seriousness and in good faith, with bona fides, one has to look at the fact that already in the Hebrew Bible (which Christians call the "Old Testament") there is a concession that secularity (as I have just defined it) is necessary, that a certain aspect of the realm, the governing aspect of the realm, is not going to be directly answerable to the specifics of divine law (not answerable to the "jot and tittle of the law", as the phrase goes). The government is going to be answerable to the overall foundations of the law, the basic norms of the law, but it is allowed considerable leeway in terms of directing the affairs of state. When I refer to affairs of state, I refer to the institution of kingship in ancient Israel. The institution of kingship in ancient Israel comes about when the people say to the retiring leader Samuel, "Give us a king, to judge us [read: to lead us, to make public policies for us] like all the other nations" (1 Samuel 8:5). One sees in biblical discussions about kingship, that there is a certain ambivalence about this institution. On the one hand, it is considered to be something that is a challenge, or a threat, to theocracy, the direct rule of God through revealed law, because it seems to make Israel like all the other nations. But isn't Israel supposed to be different from all the other nations? That ambivalence comes out in the writings of the 15th century Jewish theologian and statesman Don Isaac Abravanel, (who was Minister of Finance to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492, which was the time when all Jews and Muslims were expelled from Spain). Abravanel not only knew the Jewish sources extensively, he knew kingship first hand. He argued that the whole concession to kingship, going back to the Torah, where the people of Israel say collectively "I want a king over me like the other nations around me" (Deuteronomy 17:14) was a concession to the evil inclination. The people, at least ideally, should not have wanted this secular realm, they should not have wanted any king but God (see Judges 8:22-23), but it was something they would inevitably want because of their political need to be a part of a larger world, which obviously was not under the governance of their revealed law. This is a concession to human weakness, but nonetheless a necessary concession to human weakness, because the alternative would simply be political dissolution. Here politics had to come before theology. So, therefore, in ancient Israel there was already a notion that the king, and in fact the institution of the monarchy (called the maklhut), in effect, had a biblical warrant, somewhat ambivalently given, to be sure, but nonetheless a biblical warrant for the authority of a secular regime governing the realm. Yet there were checks and balances. The secular government had to balance its power with the institution of the Temple, and its priesthood and, especially, with the Law of God as reiterated by the prophets of Israel. We have a notion, therefore, of a secular realm, of secular leadership, which is under the ultimate authority of God, but not under the direct authority of God's revealed law. That kind of secularity becomes an extremely important factor when the people of Israel, after the destruction of the Temple in 586 BC, are sent into exile. When the people are sent into exile, they are no longer under the rule of their own secular king, let alone under the rule of the civil and criminal law of the Torah. Have the people totally lost their national/cultural identity? And, indeed, the prophet Ezekiel talks about the exiled people coming to him and saying: "We will be like the nations, like the families, of all the other lands, to serve wood and stone" (Ezekiel 20:32). In other words, had not their political independence and identity been lost, but also their religious independence and identity? That is what the people are proposing. Could Judaism survive as the religious culture of the Jewish people in Babylonian exile? Seated by the waters of Babylon, the people ask: "How can we sing the Lord's song on strange ground?"(Psalms 137:4). When we look at how the prophet Ezekiel and the prophet Jeremiah (see Jeremiah 29:4-7) dealt with the people going into exile, an important distinction is made: there are some regimes Israel can live under in good faith, and there are some they cannot live under in good faith. They can live under political rule that does not claim to be divine, but they cannot live under the rule of a non-Jewish regime that demands their ultimate commitment to its gods or god. When one makes that type of a distinction, and later Jewish thinkers developed this notion, then living under the gentile kings whose authority was similar enough to the secular authority of the kings of Israel could be justified, provided that they met two conditions: (1) This non-Jewish regime must not require the religious loyalty of the Jewish people, that is, it ought not make ultimate demands upon the people of Israel. This is what we call today religious liberty today. (2) This non-Jewish regime clearly had to be a regime that was governed by what the Jews could recognize as due process of law, and be governed by norms that were considered to be not simply the invention of the regime, but somehow or other, the natural law or the more general law of God, something the Jews could recognize to be similar enough to what their own tradition regarded as universally binding. This notion of the importance of the binding of universal law becomes clear when the prophets of Israel, for example Amos (see Amos 1: 9-12), criticized some of the gentile nations for their treachery to one another and for their cruelty, clearly not following the law that they should have known. So one has these two kinds of conditions. From the biblical material comes an important divide. The Jewish people can be loyal to the king of Babylon, but they cannot be loyal to the Egyptian Pharaoh in Egypt. Why? Because Pharaoh proclaims himself to be a god, proclaims himself to be the creator god (see Ezekiel 29: 1-6). Because Pharaoh proclaims himself to be the creator god, to be under his political rule is to be under his total theocratic (in the bad sense of the word) domination. This is something that simply cannot be done by Jews in good faith. On the other hand, if we fast-forward historically to around the time of the beginning of the common era, the time of Jesus and the destruction of the Temple, Jews were living under Roman rule in the land of Israel (then called "Palestine"), and they were living under the Persian or Parthian empire, in what is now the area of the land of Iran and Iraq. Interestingly enough, Jews had a much greater loyalty to the Parthian empire than they did to the Roman empire. Why? Because in the land of Israel, in Roman Palestine, they were living under military rule, rather than living under the due process of law. They were not being governed either by the civil law of Rome or the ius gentium, the law that the Romans used for other nations that had long been living under their rule. If you read the Gospel of John, the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate, you can see that Pontius Pilate is clearly making up the rules as he goes along (see John 18:28-40). As such, there could be no loyalty to this regime because it was not governed by due process of law, plus it discriminated against the Jews. Furthermore, in the Talmud, the Roman empire is considered to be riddled with idolatry, undoubtedly because of the notions of apotheosis, the notion that the emperors became gods. In the Persian empire there were also idols and other gods, but the Persians were not requiring Jews to worship their gods. Indeed, the rabbis even suggested that the idolatry of the Persian empire was some kind of a cultural vestige, that they were monotheists who were simply hanging on to certain forms of worship that they really no longer believed in. The authority of the Babylonian government could be respected because it was based on what the Jews considered to be universally binding law, not on human invention. So, in Babylonia in the 4th century AD, the great Jewish statesman and jurist, Mar Samuel of Nehardea, enunciated a principle called dina de-malkhuta dina, basically "the law of the state as a secular entity is binding on Jews in areas of civil and criminal jurisdiction". There is a long, long history of how this was worked out. The interesting thing was that in the Talmud, Mar Samuel did not give a reason for this very important principle. But later scholars attempted to find a reason. They argued that (and this is extremely important to remember), the principle said "the law of the kingdom or the law of the state is law". It is not the law of any individual king. It is the law of kingship or of the state, a legal system. In other words, if Jews are living under a realm where the law is made up as those in power go along, clearly it is not something which is morally binding upon Jews—or upon anyone else. But when Jews are living in a society where there is due process of law, where there is a system of law, and the system considers itself to be ultimately based upon what our Canadian Charter calls the sovereignty of God and the rule of Law (which I think are phrases in apposition: the sovereignty of God is the rule of God's law), then Jews are able to give their loyalty, and work for, and pray for, and be part of, in good faith, that secular regime. That is, a regime governed according to due process of law, which recognizes fundamental moral principles as being not of its own making and therefore cannot be unmade as it were; and this secular regime does not claim an ultimate commitment from any of its citizens, not just the Jews, but upon any of its citizens. I think, therefore, that the notions of how a theocratic system can make room for the legitimacy of a secular realm, in which those who consider themselves under the rule of divinely revealed law can participate in good faith, is a very important contribution to the well-being of that secular realm. It is much more than mere separation of the institutions of church and state. That means two things: (1) Jews bring to the secular regime a morality already formulated and practiced, which they have been living according to and to which they can be held accountable. Therefore, their commitments are something that there is good reason to believe will be kept, and if they are not kept, then Jews are answerable not just to the secular realm but, even more importantly, they are answerable to their own law and their own God. (2) Jews and members of other religions of revelation owe their ultimate commitment elsewhere (see Esther 4:14). As such, they are able to limit the power of a secular regime when there is a temptation for the secular regime to claim ultimate or metaphysical authority for itself. That is one of the most important points we have to understand: we contribute to the realm, and we can contribute to it by limiting its pretensions if one understands a secular regime as being, optimally, a democratic polity, as we have here in Canada, then the greatest danger to that polity is not that religious groups are going to impose their particular morality on the society, but rather that those who have no higher address so to speak, are going to do what the ancient Roman emperors did, and that is to divine the state, and especially the persons of its highest authorities. When, for example, the American legal theorist Ronald Dworkin, whose work is extremely influential and for the most part quite helpful, when in his most important book, Law's Kingdom, he refers to judges as "princes of the law", I want to know if they are princes, who is the king, and in the true sense, who is the King. Therefore, what one sees when his or her ultimate loyalties lie elsewhere one is not just asking for separation, but the opportunity to truly contribute to the welfare of the state. Thus people like you and I are not a threat to the state, but we are actually great contributors to the state, both by bringing to it our well-formulated, well-honed morality, and also by limiting the pretensions of those who would turn a secular regime into, in affect, a substitute god. For me anyway that would be the most undemocratic possibility that one could possibly entertain. This I think is the contribution of the Jewish tradition, and I think that it is one that is totally made in good faith. It is one which is consistent with the teachings of the Jewish tradition and one that I would like to think will become better known, not only to those who are here, but to others in our society as well.

Videos:Dr. Allan C. Carlson: Separation and Cooperation: Perspectives from the USA and EuropeProfessor Ian Leigh: Establishment, Separatism and Religious Freedom: British and European PerspectivesProfessor George Egerton: Separation & Cooperation within Canadian PluralismDr. David Novak: Theocracy and Pluralism in JudaismProfessor John von Heyking: Politics Between the Earthly City and the City of God in ChristianityProfessor Mohammed Fadel: State and Religion in Islamic History: Lessons for Pluralistic PolitiesPanel & Discussion: History of Cooperation & Implications for the Present (Novak, von Heyking, Fadel, Erb)Dr. Paul Reed: Homo Socialis: The Rediscovery of a Forgotten SpeciesDr. Terrence Downey: In Image and Likeness: Individual Dignity and Societal NobilityDr. David Kuhl: Disease and Illness, Curing and Healing: Health Care in the Context of Church and StateBishop Frederick Henry: Threats to Cooperation Between Religion & the State in Canada TodayRev. A. Logan Craft: Cooperation and Conflict Between Church and State in the MediaGordon Dirks: Religion and Public Schooling at the Calgary Board of Education - A Case StudyCristina Alarcon: Medicine, Professionalism & Conscience: Is Pluralism 'One Size Fits All'?Peter Lauwers: Do the Law and Politics of Education Show Cooperation or Separation in Canada Today?Iain Benson: When Beliefs Differ: Articulating a Framework for Cooperation

(Watch the conference presentation on video: Separation & Cooperation within Canadian Pluralism)'I find that the separation of church and the state is one of the most beautiful inventions of modern times.' (Pierre Pettigrew, National Post, 28 January 2006) 'The separation of Church and state is a tool that advocates use when they find religious views to be inconvenient to their political views.' (The Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops, Media Release, February 1, 2006) 'The contemporary concept of unwritten constitutional principles can be seen as a modern reincarnation of the ancient doctrines of natural law. Like those conceptions of justice, the identification of these principles seems to presuppose the existence of some kind of natural order. Unlike them, however, it does not fasten on theology as the source of the unwritten principles that transcend the exercise of state power. It is derived from the history, values and culture of the nation, viewed in its constitutional context.' (Remarks of the Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, P.C., given at the 2005 Lord Cooke Lecture in Wellington, New Zealand, December 1st, 2005.) 'I think we all have reasons to be grateful that the relations between Church and State are so helpful in our country and that it is very necessary future generations should maintain them.' (St. Laurent to T. L. Church, 14 March 1949. St. Laurent Papers, Vol. 70, File, 'Religion - General - 1948-49.') 'As individuals it is our duty to stand firm on the Christian principles which have been taught in our churches and which in themselves have the key to the solution of every problem - social, personal and political.' ('An address by the Secretary of State for External Affairs, Mr. L. B. Pearson, delivered at the Yorkminster Baptist Church, Toronto, March 25, 1953.' Lester B. Pearson Papers, NAC, MG 26/N9/7.) 'The Parliament of Canada, affirming that the Canadian Nation is founded upon principles that acknowledge the supremacy of God, the dignity and worth of the human person and the position of the family in a society of free men and free institutions . . .' (Preamble to the Canadian Bill of Rights, 1960) 'We are now living in a social climate in which people are beginning to realize, perhaps for the first time in the history of this country, that we are not entitled to impose the concepts which belong to a sacred society upon a civil or profane society. The concepts of the civil society in which we live are pluralistic, and I think this parliament realizes that it would be a mistake for us to try to legislate into this society concepts which belong to a theological or sacred order.' (Pierre Trudeau, Canada, House of Commons, Debates, December 5, 1967, p. 5083) 'I don't think God gives a damn whether he's in the constitution or not.' (Pierre Trudeau, Liberal Caucus, April 1981) 'The acknowledgement of one Supreme God to whom we as a nation are answerable gives ground for legislation bearing on all matters human. To omit any such reference only leaves the door open for substitution of other less worthy grounds—utilitarianism, naturalism, secularism, etc.—since legislation cannot escape growing out of presuppositions. Moreover, human rights though recognized by the state in a democratic society are a sacred endowment from God not bestowed but administered by the state.' (Resolution adopted by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada at its biennial meeting convened in Toronto, February 25, 1981. Reprinted in Thrust: The Quarterly News and Review Magazine of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, 13:1, 1981, p.2) 'Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:'. (Preamble, Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 1982)Introduction A glance at the 'beautiful inventions' quoted above demonstrates dramatically that the relations of church and state, religion and politics in modernity and postmodernity, not least in Canada, are increasingly troubled and contested. This has been the case in most Western states since the 1960s. Whereas liberal and leftist theorists of modernity predicted and hoped that the dogmas and superstitions of religion would be supplanted by enlightenment rationalism, science and humanism, history has confounded these projections. If Western Europe has seemingly conformed to secularization theory, the return and expansion of religion—in the form of militant Islam and Christianity in the global south, and the resurgence of conservative religion in the United States—have made sociologists and political theorists rethink the relationship between religion and modernity. Canada seems to be caught somewhere between the US and Europe in its religious and political culture, but the relationship between church and state, religion and politics, is increasingly embattled. Religion is the elephant in the room of Canadian politics and the elephant is not about to go away. This is because issues like gay rights, same-sex marriage, abortion, euthanasia, family law, human rights, etc., engage us intimately and passionately, and they inevitably involve religion in the public, political and legal realms. Over the last two decades my Canadian Religion and Politics Project has studied church-state relations since 1945; here the intention is briefly and selectively to distill from the larger project major themes and transitions in constitutional discourse and change, in the quest for human rights, and in the evolving construction and features of Canadian pluralism/s. The paper will conclude with several reflections of contemporary relevance. The 'beautiful and not so beautiful' quotations above will be visited periodically to animate the analysis and drive things forward. The principal thesis is that in Canada religion and politics, Christianity and liberal ideology, functioned cooperatively, until the great caesura of the 1960s, mutually supporting and constraining each other. When one subordinated the other, as in the Catholicism of Duplessis' Quebec, or the liberal secularism following the Trudeau revolution and Charter jurisprudence, something precious is lost for both church and state, as their relationship becomes antagonistic.Brief history of Separation & Cooperation within Canadian Pluralism Let us start with Chief Justice McLachlin:'The contemporary concept of unwritten constitutional principles can be seen as a modern reincarnation of the ancient doctrines of natural law. Like those conceptions of justice, the identification of these principles seems to presuppose the existence of some kind of natural order. Unlike them, however, it does not fasten on theology as the source of the unwritten principles that transcend the exercise of state power. It is derived from the history, values and culture of the nation, viewed in its constitutional context.' Now, strangely enough, when I first read this passage, the phrase 'the history, values and culture of the nation, viewed in its constitutional context' struck home, because this is pretty much what I have been studying since the 1980s. However, Ms. McLachlin's reading of Canadian history is radically different from what I have found in the record of constitutional discourse and jurisprudence, and in the evolving phases of Canadian pluralism. Put simply and briefly, my research identifies three principal phases in the status and functions of religion in Canadian constitutional history: 1. Canadian Christendom or Christian Pluralism; 2. Religious Pluralism; 3. Secularist Pluralism.1. Canadian Christendom or Christian Pluralism (Mackenzie King and Louis St. Laurent) From the earliest colonization of the Americas, including French and British North America, the Christian religion was central to the defining elements of politics, law, culture, and imperial purpose. After the British conquest, Quebec Catholicism was given legal protection, and with the frustration of the Church of England's quest for establishment after the 1840s resolution of the clergy reserve struggle, Canadian churches lived with denominationalism, competitive but also cooperative—in an informal establishment, functionally not dissimilar to Britain and America, despite the constitutional differences.1 In this informal establishment religion functioned as 'the conscience of the state,' performing priestly functions (public prayers, rituals, legitimating government authority); pastoral functions (health, welfare, socialization/schooling, chaplaincies); and prophetic functions (guardians of family / sexual morality; temperance crusades, social gospel criticism of capitalist injustices). In this Christian pluralism run by the national, mainline Protestant and Catholic churches (with the 'sects' peripheralized), Canada defined itself manifestly as a 'Christian democracy' where the Christian religion and liberal ideology cooperated in governance. The ties of church and state were consciously tightened in times of national peril, especially wartime, when the national churches and the Governments defined the struggle as a crusade for Christian and liberal civilization against Nazi Paganism—and then godless communism in the Cold War. In the post-WWII period, under Liberal Prime Ministers Mackenzie King and Louis St. Laurent (the former a devoted if eccentric Presbyterian, the latter a devout Catholic) the mutual respect and cooperation of church and state remained intimate, as Canadian society experienced a period of so-called religious revival and unprecedented institutional expansion. In this 'post-colonial' period, as Canadian nationhood was searching for new identity distinct from Britain, as the British Empire became the Commonwealth of Nations, and as appeals to the of Judicial Committee of the British Privy Council were ended in 1949 with the Canadian Supreme Court becoming really supreme, Canadian political elites, even more than religious elites, insisted on preserving the Christian component of national identity. My project finds this continuum especially in the political and constitutional discourse generated by the quest to bring Canada into the 'Age of Human Rights'—by supporting the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and testing the project of a Canadian Bill of Rights.2 Given the mixed Canadian record on civil liberties under the War Measures Act, the treatment of Japanese Canadians, the revelations of the Jewish Holocaust, the incarceration of suspected communists after the Gouzenko revelations and Royal Commission on Espionage, and the depredations of Duplessis' regime in Quebec, leaders of Canadian liberalism and the Left pressed for protection of fundamental liberties and rights. The Liberal Governments of both King and St. Laurent, however, with trans-party concurrence, insisted that human rights must be given an explicit, transcendent, religious source. When the Canadixan Government's insistence that the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights contain a religious referent failed, Canada voted for the Declaration only with great reluctance—and to avoid being grouped with a small band of abstainers: the Soviet Bloc, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa. When St. Laurent, following the electoral victory of 1949, gave Liberal Senator Arthur Roebuck the latitude to chair a Senate Committee in 1950 to canvas support for a Canadian Bill of Rights, Roebuck, mobilizing civil libertarians leaders like Frank Scott {McGill), John Humphrey (Director of UN Human Rights Division), J. King Gordon (UN Human Rights Division), projected in his committee's Report a visionary future for inaugurating a new era in nationhood: This is then the very time for Canada to decide the basis upon which this new Nation is founded.... this is the time to nail the emblems of law, liberty and human rights to our masthead. This is the very moment in which to decide our nationhood, to guarantee human rights and fundamental freedoms to all our citizens, and to proclaim our principles to the world.3The Catholic members of the Roebuck Committee insisted on placing any support for a Bill of Rights within a manifestly religious framework and also in reaffirming Canada's national identity in Christian terms: the Report therefore concluded by portraying Canada as 'a Christian country' and recommending 'that all men give thought to the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man,' so as to further the rule of law and the rights of individuals. The St. Laurent Government showed no inclination to proceed with constitutional innovation or the writing of a Canadian Bill of Rights—especially when the Korean War broke out just after the Roebuck Committee reported.2. Religious Pluralism (John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson) The next major intersection point of religion in constitutional discourse and evolving Canadian pluralism comes with the quest by John Diefenbaker's Conservative Governments, after the elections of 1957-58, to advance the cause of human rights—a project which culminated in the Canadian Bill of Rights of 1960.4 While Diefenbaker, as a devout Baptist, was wary of any interlocking of church and state, he maintained close relations with not only church leaders but also the Jewish community through his long-term participation on the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews. The evidence clearly indicates the continuing salience of religion in directing government purpose and legitimating its authority; but exclusively Christian language was now giving way to a more inclusive 'religious pluralism,' as political leaders made explicit efforts to include Canada's Jewish community in the national religious consortium. While human rights now came to make greater claim on Canadian national identity and purpose, political and religious elites nevertheless remained agreed that government authority and human rights needed a religious foundation. When the Diefenbaker government took up the task of legislating a Canadian Bill of Rights, the discussion in committee and in Parliament demonstrated there was near unanimous support, as previously, for placing rights explicitly within a religious framework. The Preamble to the Canadian Bill of Rights therefore specified 'that the Canadian Nation is founded upon principles that acknowledge the supremacy of God, the dignity and worth of the human person and the position of the family in a society of free men and free institutions . . .'. This wording reflected close consultation with Jewish leaders on the part of Justice Minister Davie Fulton and the leading Liberal member of the Parliamentary Committee, Paul Martin Sr., both being faithful Catholics. The reference to the 'supremacy of God' in the 1960 Canadian Bill of Rights did not herald a renewed age of faith. Indeed, the decade of the 'sixties would witness fundamental shifting in Canadian cultural history, not least as the religious affiliations, beliefs, and behaviour of Canadians experienced unprecedented, rapid retrenchment—first in English-speaking Protestant Canada but soon also in Catholic Quebec where the so-called 'Quiet Revolution' led by the Liberals under Jean Lesage saw the Provincial government rapidly remove the Catholic church from its former privileged role in culture, welfare, health services, and education. Churches in Canada and internationally would engage in radical rethinking of theology and mission—most thoroughly and systematically in the deliberations of Vatican II (1962-1965), but more radically in Protestant immanentalist theologies, welcoming the 'secular city,' being 'honest to god,'demythologizing the faith, and finally heralding the 'death of god.' Journalist Pierre Berton's 1965 best-seller book, The Comfortable Pew, broke all Canadian sales records and engaged the mainline Canadian Protestantism in a firestorm of self-analysis and an urgent quest for renewed relevance. Indeed, by brilliantly popularizing the main themes of the radical theologians, Berton captured and projected the agenda of Canadian liberal Protestants for the rest of the 20th century as they abandoned the old theology, the old curricula, and the old morality in the age of the pill and mass entertainment. After the disintegration of the Diefenbaker Government in 1963, Lester Pearson would lead a series of minority Liberal Governments ineffectively addressing a rising tide of bewildering issues, scandals, and national malaise. A child of the manse (Methodist, then United Church), the Prime Minister was as sincere a Christian believer as his predecessors. If he preferred sports, especially baseball, to church services on Sundays, Pearson nevertheless respected deeply the role of Canadian religious communities in the country's national life. Addressing a conference at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church in 1953, Pearson had advised his co-religionists:'As individuals it is our duty to stand firm on the Christian principles which have been taught in our churches and which in themselves have the key to the solution of every problem—social, personal and political.' After the politically bruising struggle in 1964 to agree on a new Canadian flag (devoid of the Christian symbols in the previous Canadian Ensign), the Pearson Government had the happier task of arranging for the year-long celebrations to mark the centennial of Confederation in 1967, and to host the Montreal World's Fair—Expo 67. Here the Government and its officials in the Centennial Commission took the initiative in helping Churches across Canada participate eagerly in their local communities' centennial celebrations, with appropriate liturgies and prayers to honour the country. The Canadian Corporation on the 1967 World's Exhibition also took the initiative in planning for religious participation in Expo 67. A fine recent study of the religious dimension of the Centennial and Expo 67 indicates clearly the religiously-positive pluralism of the Government and its officials in organizing this national spectacle.5 The Centennial Commission started by setting up, funding and providing administrative and publicity services for a Canadian Interfaith Conference which included representation from the national churches and eventually some 33 faith communities, including Pentecostals, Mormons, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Bahá'ís. While the various religious communities were eager to join in the celebrations, the form of participation signaled some confusion and controversy in the evolving nature of pluralism in Canada. The Centennial Commission pressed for a single religious pavilion, housing all faiths under one roof. The leadership of the national churches wanted a single ecumenical pavilion for Christians, and declined to embrace the inter-faith pluralism first suggested by the Centennial planners. Moreover, the evangelical Protestant churches equally declined ecumenism, and were the first to acquire a site for their own pavilion at Expo, where their Sermons From Science, drawn from the Moody Bible Institute, served principally as a forum for evangelization. The Canadian Jewish community also mounted its own pavilion. Whatever distinctives the churches and other faith communities wished to sustain at Expo, their pavilions turned out to be popular successes and equally signified the positive religious pluralism of the Pearson Liberals in facilitating religious participation in national life—and on terms favoured by the religious communities themselves. The greatest political challenge faced by the Pearson Liberals came in the form of Quebec nationalism. With Quebec Catholicism freely cooperating in its political disestablishment, the Quebec Liberals' quest to be 'maitres chez nous' soon transformed into a nationalist ideology which supplanted the discredited public functions of religion as previously exploited by Duplessis. Québécois ethnicity, language, and cultural assertion challenged Canada's English hegemony and its federal constitutional structure. The federal Liberal's responded with the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963­1969) which initiated a long process of re-imagining the Canadian nation on the basis of a fairer Anglophone-Francophone partnership. The work and reports of the Bi and Bi Commission attempted to redefine Canadian nationhood in terns of ethnicity and language. The former centrality of religion in Canada's national identity, as underlined repeatedly in the Parliamentary Committees studying human rights, constitutional issues and national purpose in the 1940s and 1950s, and in the drafting of the Canadian Bill of Rights, found no place in the findings of the Commission. Nor did this theme figure in the submissions made by the churches, who generally affirmed the Liberals' attempt to re-imagine Canadian nationality along more inclusive linguistic and ethic lines.3. Secularist Pluralism (Pierre Trudeau to Paul Martin) The efforts of the Pearson Liberals to re-imagine Canadian nationhood in terms of bilingualism and biculturalism soon proved inadequate, critiqued roundly by aboriginal and other ethnic communities. By the late 1960s Canada was on the verge of several decades of radical re-imaginings which would witness transformative change in its constitution, jurisprudence and, not least, in church-state relations. Indeed, the defining elements of Canadian pluralism would shift from religion to language and ethnicity, as multiculturalism supplanted biculturalism in a new quest for national identity, purpose, and unity. Simultaneously, Canadian legislators embraced the protection of human rights as the fundamental legitimator of renewed governmental authority. By the time that God would return to haunt the renewed Canadian constitutional discourse directed by Pierre Trudeau as Justice Minister and then Prime Minister after 1968, Canadian public life and rhetoric would be in process of rapid de-Christianization, while jurisprudence and political theory were searching for non-religious foundations. The larger dimensions of this story can but be alluded to tonight.6 The 1960s and 1970s were transformative in terms of secularization, as ethnic and ideological pluralism supplanted the former Anglo-French, Protestant-Catholic dualism of Canadian history. The Canadian experience forms part of a process of modernization shared with all industrialized societies and, in Canada's case, heavily influenced by Britain and America. From Britain came the recommendations of the Wolfenden Report—that criminality and morality should be separated in such matters as homosexuality and prostitution, and that the state should confine itself to the proscription and punishment of behaviour that was manifestly harmful to society, while protecting the freedom of the individual, even if the choices indulged socially harmless 'sinning.' These themes found a sympathetic hearing in liberal Canadian quarters. Concurrently, from America the integration of politics and religion was most clearly challenged by a series of Supreme Court decisions that asserted a strict wall of separation between church and state in matters of public education, and other public services. In Canada, the legal transitions had the added drama of coinciding with the making of a new constitution—a project which focused in large measure on the protecting human rights. The Canadian constitutional drama, moreover, was driven by a philosopher-king, Pierre Trudeau, who, as Prime Minister after 1968, made the constitutional entrenchment of a Charter of Rights his own political mission, seeing it through to success in the constitutional settlement of 1982. When in 1967 Trudeau became Justice Minister in the Pearson's Liberal Government, the concurrent celebrations marking the centennial year of the Canadian confederation were troubled, at least latently, by a diffuse sense of social malaise as to national purpose and identity. With the crises of the depression and war now receding into memory after decades of unprecedented prosperity and a dawning of detente in the Cold War, the country found itself faced with not only the manifest challenge of resurgent Québécois nationalism but also a cultural revolution that was eager to challenge the traditional privileging of religion well beyond Quebec Catholicism. In the germinating legitimation crisis which attended the drift, scandals, and confusions of the last years of the Pearson government, it was the genius of Trudeau's politics to project updated themes of classic liberal ideology—brilliantly indiginized for Canadian appeal: federalism to confront the separatist aspirations of Quebec nationalism; multicultural pluralism to accommodate and contain ethnic assertion and ideological conflict; civil libertarianism to enshrine protection for individual rights in a revised constitution; participatory democracy to include citizens in the shaping of the just society, and secularism to disentangle a modernized Canadian legal order from its religious constraints. Each of these themes resonated with Canadian mass culture by the latter half of the 'sixties, and appealed deeply to academic, cultural, and media elites, offering renewed government purpose and legitimation while concurrently rejuvenating the Liberal Party. When the project to modernize Canadian law and liberate it from its religious framework addressed itself first to divorce legislation, Trudeau instructed Parliament in 1967 on the cardinal themes of the new jurisprudence: We are now living in a social climate in which people are beginning to realize, perhaps for the first time in the history of this country, that we are not entitled to impose the concepts, which belong to a sacred society upon a civil or profane society. The concepts of the civil society in which we live are pluralistic, and I think this parliament realizes that it would be a mistake for us to try to legislate into this society concept that belongs to a theological or sacred order.That the rights and freedoms of the individual would provide the animus for a comprehensive modernization and liberalization of Canadian law was evident not only in Trudeau's approach to the issue of divorce law, but also in the initiatives he undertook in a coterie of other 'morality' issues, such as lotteries, birth control, homosexuality, and abortion—all of which contained potentially explosive intersections of religious and legal principles. After legal study of several of these issues within the Justice Department, and comprehensive public hearings on the issues of birth control and abortion conducted by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health and Welfare, Trudeau combined these 'morality' issues with a series of other changes in the criminal law code into an Omnibus Bill which was given first reading in the Commons 21 December 1967. By the time the Omnibus Bill was passed in 1969, Trudeau had captured the leadership of the Liberal Party and led it to electoral triumph in 1968, assisted by the powerful, if transient, appeal of 'Trudeaumania.' However, if Trudeau's charisma and progressive agenda won him the first Liberal majority government since 1953, his trenchant federalism sparked revolutionary violence from the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ). Trudeau's invocation of the War Measures Act in October 1970 to suppress separatist terrorism in Quebec both demonstrated the perceived fragility of state authority and shocked civil libertarians that one of their own would go so far. A friend and protégé of Frank Scott, Trudeau had advocated a constitutionally-entrenched charter of rights from the early 1960s; it would be this 'magnificent obsession' which would inspire Trudeau and the Liberals through the economic and political crises of the 1970s, as the Parti Québécois under René Lévesque gained Provincial power in 1976 and fought an unsuccessful referendum on 'sovereignty-association' in 1980. Re-elected in 1980 after a brief retirement, Trudeau confronted the Quebec separatists with the promise of constitutional patriation, which would also include a constitutionally-entrenched Charter of Rights a project Trudeau carried out in 1982 after over a year of complex and Machiavellian political maneuvering in federal-provincial relations. To the Government's surprise, beyond the impassioned debate in Committee and Parliament on challenges mobilized by civil libertarian, aboriginal , and women's groups, religious issues emerged powerfully as religious lobbies joined with Conservative Party leaders to criticize the 'Godlessness' of the Liberals' proposed Charter. What is perhaps most noteworthy for our purposes regarding the religious dimensions of the constitutional debate is that whereas the mainline Protestant submissions and witnesses gave support to the Charter project, concentrating on justice issues with little concern for issues of religious freedom or religious grounding for human rights, it was the Catholics and the evangelical Protestants who pressed the government most determinedly on these issues. According to the caucus briefings prepared by David Smith, Liberal Deputy House Leader, and information he conveyed to me, it was the rising demographics of evangelical Protestantism and its convergence with Catholicism in theology and politics, which convinced a reluctant Trudeau and his Justice Minister, Jean Chrétien, to include a religious referent in the Preamble to the Charter: 'Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law'. Previously, Trudeau criticized the Conservatives as 'hypocritical and detestable' for playing politics with God, claiming that they were inspired more by fear of the electorate than fear of God. Although Trudeau thought 'it was strange, so long after the Middle Ages that some politicians felt obliged to mention God in a constitution which is, after all, a secular and not a spiritual document,' he also genuflected to the electorate, claiming now it was his personal preference to include the reference. Privately, Trudeau told the Liberal caucus the he didn't think 'God gives a damn whether he was in the constitution or not.' The Liberals were confronted with a mass media and letter-writing mobilization of conservative Christians, supported by the Conservative Party: Canadians demonstrated once again that they wanted God in their constitution.Conclusions At a vital moment in the successful campaign to acknowledge the 'supremacy of God', the leaders of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada wrote directly to the Prime Minister explaining clearly why they wanted this reference in the Canadian constitution: 'The acknowledgement of one Supreme God to whom we as a nation are answerable gives ground for legislation bearing on all matters human. To omit any such reference only leaves the door open for substitution of other less worthy grounds—utilitarianism, naturalism, secularism, etc.—since legislation cannot escape growing out of presuppositions. Moreover, human rights though recognized by the state in a democratic society are a sacred endowment from God not bestowed but administered by the state.' This was a theological statement which could have been fully approved by Catholics Å“ indeed it reads like Canadian evangelical Protestants had now discovered Thomas Aquinas! At first glance, the inclusion of the reference to God represented a signal success for the evangelical Christian lobbyists. The constitutional success, however, did not mean that the deeper cultural tides of de-Christianization or secularization had been reversed or that the traditional role of religion in Canadian political history had been restored. The constitutional reference to God had come as a result of tactical political calculations, not from any conversion on the part of Trudeau or the Liberals to the philosophic or theological convictions expressed by Conservative leaders , let alone the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. If Trudeau's desire to remove theology from politics had suffered a temporary reverse, the Charter itself would serve to launch a new era of secularist pluralist jurisprudence in Canadian political culture. Indeed, similar to the patters of jurisprudence through the post-1960s decades in Britain and the United States, the Canadian church-state relationship would be transformed as the Christian religion would see the state largely divest itself of religion's traditional priestly functions of legitimating government authority and law, and its prophetic and pastoral functions in guarding family and sexual morality. Which brings us back to where we started, with the beautiful inventions of Mr. Pettigrew and Chief Justice McLachlin. The capacity of democratic governments to perform successfully without religious legitimations and conscience has a very brief and untested history. Equally, it remains to be seen if religion will remain within the peripheralized and privatized spheres assigned to it in the secularist pluralist jurisprudence that Chief Justice McLachlin mistakenly and mythically elicits from Canadian history. If the mainline national churches of Canada have been demographically decimated and politically marginalized in recent decades, the re-configurations and re-alignments of religious conservatives from Protestantism and Catholicism, in Canada and internationally, and the effective coalitions now increasingly being built with other faith communities, perhaps herald changes to come. The reference to 'the supremacy of God' in the Canadian constitution may yet prove to be a crucial part of our written constitution—indeed, a beautiful re-invention. Traditionally, Canadian religious and political leaders defined Canada's national identity as a 'Christian democracy.' In the circumstances of today's demographic multicultualism, this formula is no longer possible; nor is nostalgic longing for the reconstruction of Canadian Christendom. What is possible and clearly represents an emerging dynamic in Canadian civil society is the formation of religious coalitions representing the common values of all the major faiths to guard what is precious in the human person and the religious freedoms of faith communities, in face of ideologies, politics, and jurisprudence which would subvert these. Will the definition of Canadian pluralism and multiculturalism be religiously friendly, as in our longer tradition, or religiously hostile and exclusionary, as in recent experience? Can religious faith and liberal ideology regain their traditional interdependence? Can religion reaffirm its standing at the head of the Canadian constitution, or will religious freedoms continue to be subordinated to equality rights? It is hoped that the historical perspectives offered in this address can contribute to better informed, positive responses to these most important challenges.Notes 1 E. R. Norman, The Conscience of the State in North America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968). 2 See the author's 'Entering the Age of Human Rights: Politics, Religion, and Canadian Liberalism: 1945-1950,' Canadian Historical Review, LXXXV: 3 (September 2004), pp. 451-479. 3 Canada, Parliament, Senate, Proceedings of the Special Committee on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Ottawa: King's Printer, 1950). 4 See the author's 'Writing the Canadian Bill of Rights: Religion, Politics, and the Challenge of Pluralism, 1957-1960, Canadian Journal of Law and Society 19:2 (November 2004), pp. 1-22. 5 Gary R. Miedema, For Canada's Sake Canada: Public Religion, the Centennial Celebrations and the Re-making of Canada in the 1960s (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005). 6 See the author's 'Trudeau, God and the Canadian Constitution: Religion, Human Rights, and Government Authority in the Making of the 1982 Constitution,' in David Lyons and Marguerite Van Die, eds., Rethinking Church, State, and Modernity: Canada between Europe and America (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000) pp. 90-112.