# Belief in Santa and Easter bunny required in Ontario **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 13, 2017, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387 "2017-04-13T16:06:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387/21 "2017-04-13T23:34:05Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > They should have refused to give up the kids until the police had to come and drag the kids kicking and screaming out of the house. Then they could have placed the video on the Internet, garnered massive world-wide support, and sued for a lot of money. That’s another way policies get changed. I disagree. There is no call to make the poor kids suffer for the stupidity of the authorities. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387/22 "2017-04-13T23:48:33Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > They should have refused to give up the kids until the police had to come and drag the kids kicking and screaming out of the house. Then they could have placed the video on the Internet, garnered massive world-wide support, and sued for a lot of money. That’s another way policies get changed. It’s also a great way to traumatize the kids, who have probably been through a lot all ready. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387/23 "2017-04-13T23:56:23Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > You should read exhibit F (Hamilton CAS) and G (Baars’ reply) in the linked court filing. I can dream up several possible reasons for the weirdness but until the Hamilton CAS chime in, this is all we have to go with. I read them. To my mind, the CAS letter sounds like they are claiming they had multiple issues with this foster family and their relationship with the biological family. Given that the foster family is evidently from some strict Christian sect, there are lots of possible reasons why the CAS may have found this foster family lacking in “…flexibility and compromise and a focus on the child’s needs first and foremost”, to quote the CAS letter. The response from the foster family, obviously, denied that they had been “inflexible” and suggested that they had gone far out of their way to accommodate the biological parents - including being willing to “… bathe them [the children] every other evening …”, which is presented, oddly, as an example of how they had acted in good faith “…regardless of cost or convenience to ourselves.” It strikes me, from a casual reading of these documents, that the dispute was about a lot more than the belief in the Easter Bunny. But as you say, we can’t know for sure until the CAS files their materials. ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387/24 "2017-04-14T02:52:16Z")
There are many stupid rules for fostering and adopting children. In my neck of the woods, parents cannot foster children if the children will sleep on a different level of the house than the adults. Children also cannot sleep in the basement. Anywhere from one-third to two-thirds of my children’s friends sleep in the basement while the parents are on the main floor. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Mondegreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/91b2a8/32.png) [@Lord\_Mondegreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Mondegreen)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387/25 "2017-04-14T05:43:57Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > That actually may be true. It varies by province. At one time recently (not sure if its still true), Newfoundland required that adoptive parents be the same > Christian denomination as the newborn babies they were adopting. A Presbyterian family could not adopt an Anglican baby. I wonder if there were arguments in the hospital nursery incubators between atheist and agnostic babies about what those terms meant. This isn’t directed at you, **jtur88** , but I have a problem with the term “the same Christian denomination as the newborn babies they were adopting.” Newborn babies don’t have a religion, although their parents may well do. Similarly there is no such thing as “an Anglican baby,” although there certainly are babies of Anglican parents. I wonder how Newfoundland would have dealt with a baby who had one Anglican parent and one Roman Catholic parent. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387/26 "2017-04-14T18:28:29Z")
> [@Lord\_Mondegreen](#): > > This isn’t directed at you, **jtur88** , but I have a problem with the term “the same Christian denomination as the newborn babies they were adopting.” Newborn babies don’t have a religion, although their parents may well do. Similarly there is no such thing as “an Anglican baby,” although there certainly are babies of Anglican parents. > > I wonder how Newfoundland would have dealt with a baby who had one Anglican parent and one Roman Catholic parent. That was exactly my point, and you missed the sarcasm (not your fault).The fact is, at that time, Newfoundland “public” schools were all administered by religious bodies, who were reimbursed for the expense of schooling by the government. People who chose to declare no affiliation faced certain difficulties in trying to get their children into a school, and would probably have also found themselves ineligible to adopt a child. Also, Quebec schools were all administered under either the Protestant or the Roman Catholic school board, and might still lbe. ---
**Author:** ![apollonia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2bfe46/32.png) [@apollonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/apollonia)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387/27 "2017-04-14T19:33:08Z")
Since 1997 Quebec school boards have been linguistically rather than religiously divided. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387/28 "2017-04-14T19:44:04Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I disagree. There is no call to make the poor kids suffer for the stupidity of the authorities. > [@Guinastasia](#): > > It’s also a great way to traumatize the kids, who have probably been through a lot all ready. :dubious: I don’t understand what that has to do with it. They think they are in the right, therefore they should defy all orders from the authorities until they are forced, kicking and screaming, to surrender to the law. After which, they become Internet famous, and get a lot of money and promote changes to the institution that wronged them. I learned about that in another thread. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387/29 "2017-04-14T19:48:42Z")
> [@Lord\_Mondegreen](#): > > I wonder how Newfoundland would have dealt with a baby who had one Anglican parent and one Roman Catholic parent. They were supposed to mumble something about the wisdom of King Solomon and then fire up a table saw. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387/30 "2017-04-17T14:28:00Z")
> [@Barbarian](#): > > There are many stupid rules for fostering and adopting children. > In my neck of the woods, parents cannot foster children if the children will sleep on a different level of the house than the adults. Children also cannot sleep in the basement. > > Anywhere from one-third to two-thirds of my children’s friends sleep in the basement while the parents are on the main floor. I don’t know the reasoning for requiring same-level sleeping, but it’s a fairly standard building code to not allow bedrooms in a basement. Fire, floods, earthquakes, etc tend to trap people who are below ground. There’re ways to mitigate the risks, but it’s simpler from a Children’s agency perspective to simply disallow it, rather than have building code inspectors regularly recertifying a bedroom. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387/31 "2017-04-17T18:23:16Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > There is no right to be a foster parent. Children’s Services can generally move foster kids whenever the Service itself determines it’s in the best interest of the children. It might not be that simple. I don’t know how the respective laws work in Canada/Ontario, but in the US, there’s no right to shop at a given store. But if the store-owner bans people of a particular religion/race/etc., that’s still actionable. There _is_ a right not to be discriminated against based on a certain characteristic. So, just because there’s no right to be a foster parent doesn’t necessarily mean that Children’s Services can determine who gets foster children using _any_ criteria. If, as the foster parents allege, the children are being replaced due to their religious beliefs, they may well have a case. I obviously don’t have all the facts here, but if refusing to lie to children about non-existent mythical beings is even _part_ of the evidence against this foster parents, that strikes me as an absurd and Kafkaesque state of affairs. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387/32 "2017-04-17T19:58:53Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > I don’t know the reasoning for requiring same-level sleeping, but it’s a fairly standard building code to not allow bedrooms in a basement. Fire, floods, earthquakes, etc tend to trap people who are below ground. There’re ways to mitigate the risks, but it’s simpler from a Children’s agency perspective to simply disallow it, rather than have building code inspectors regularly recertifying a bedroom. Actually, International Code Council (ICC) requirements, which are followed by the vast majority of US communities, require only that a basement with habitable area(s) [must have at least direct way to get out in an emergency](https://www.bobvila.com/articles/333-know-the-rules-for-finished-basements/#.WPUcj_krJaQ): > [@](#): > > Marc Nard, ICC technical expert, further explains which spaces require emergency egress or exit openings, saying emergency exits are required in basement sleeping rooms or habitable space — defined as spaces used for living, sleeping, eating, or cooking. While that does not include spaces like bathrooms, toilet rooms, closets, halls, storage spaces, or utility spaces, it does include offices, recreation rooms, bedrooms, and home theaters. I don’t know, but presume, that Canadian communities follow the same standards. ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387/33 "2017-04-18T00:23:52Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > I don’t know the reasoning for requiring same-level sleeping, but it’s a fairly standard building code to not allow bedrooms in a basement. Fire, floods, earthquakes, etc tend to trap people who are below ground. There’re ways to mitigate the risks, but it’s simpler from a Children’s agency perspective to simply disallow it, rather than have building code inspectors regularly recertifying a bedroom. National building code in Canada says bedrooms must have a window you can fit through. In some provinces a basement bedroom doesn’t even need a window: all you need is a door to outside somewhere near the bedroom. But like I said earlier, basement bedrooms are very common where I live. ---
**Author:** ![MoodIndigo1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@MoodIndigo1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MoodIndigo1)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2017, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387/34 "2017-04-18T00:55:52Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > That was exactly my point, and you missed the sarcasm (not your fault).The fact is, at that time, Newfoundland “public” schools were all administered by religious bodies, who were reimbursed for the expense of schooling by the government. People who chose to declare no affiliation faced certain difficulties in trying to get their children into a school, and would probably have also found themselves ineligible to adopt a child. > > Also, Quebec schools were all administered under either the Protestant or the Roman Catholic school board, and might still lbe. Your post is correct, I just want to clarify one thing: public schools in Quebec were deconfessionalized in 2000. The story leading up to this is pretty complicated, so I’ll spare you. As a note, I am a retired teacher from Quebec, and I experienced this firsthand. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2018, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387/35 "2018-04-21T13:38:57Z")
And an update: [Edmonton couple who refused to tell foster kids Easter Bunny is real feels vindicated, ready to adopt](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/easter-bunny-edmonton-ontario-foster-children-hamilton-1.4569813). [Charter rights violated for couple who refused to tell foster kids Easter Bunny is real](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/easter-bunny-charter-rights-1.4566680): > [@](#): > > The couple said the Easter Bunny was at the core of the dispute and argued telling children in their care the character was real was a violation of their religious beliefs — a position Superior Court Judge A.J. Goodman agreed with. > > “There is ample evidence to support the fact that the children were removed because the Baars refused to either tell or imply that the Easter Bunny was delivering chocolate to the Baars’ home,” Goodman wrote in a decision released Tuesday. “I am more than satisfied that the society actions interfered substantially with the Baars’ religious beliefs.” > > … > > However, the Baars argued Lindsay told them it was part of their duty as foster parents to teach the girls about the Easter Bunny, court documents show. > > The Baars told Lindsay they intended to hide chocolate eggs and have the girls find them on Easter and play other games, but didn’t plan to speak to the children about the Easter Bunny, unless the girls specifically asked questions about the character, documents said. > > … > > Goodman found the Baars did try to have the children enjoy holidays such as Easter and Christmas. > > “There is sufficient evidence to assert that the Baars did, indeed, attempt to preserve the children’s enjoyment of the holidays, even of they were not able, pursuant to their religious beliefs, to positively perpetuate the existence of the fictitious characters that are associated with those holidays,” Goodman wrote. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2018, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387/36 "2018-04-21T16:24:15Z")
That seems like a good outcome. I’m no fan of wacky beliefs, religious or not, but it is clear that not believing in the Easter Bunny or Santa is not harmful in any way shape or form. Many children grow up with neither of those beliefs and indeed, no religious or fairytale-based beliefs at all and don’t suffer the slightest ill-effect from it. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2018, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387/37 "2018-04-21T17:41:11Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I believe they’ve officially lightened up a little bit but I imagine some of the more traditional members still abide by the old rules. I find this phrase unintentionally hilarious. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2018, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387/38 "2018-04-21T20:53:22Z")
The main thing I remember finding out about this was that they specifically offered to allow the kids to go somewhere else for the holidays, so they could have their Santa and Easter Bunny. And they had their own parties where they refused to say either way. They would redirect any questions that came up, without saying one way or the other. They were being as accommodating as they could be while still sticking to their religion’s belief that lying about these things was wrong. I also just find the Easter Bunny part to be odd. I never grew up thinking the Easter Bunny was real. He was just a guy in a suit. We got baskets from our parents, and then our grandparents, parents, and older kids hid eggs for us to find. These same grandparents were whole hog in on Santa. I never knew the Easter Bunny was even important to anyone. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belief-in-santa-and-easter-bunny-required-in-ontario/784387.md?page=1)