The question should be clear.
By custom but not by law.
Of course, “separation of church and state” is not specifically mandated in US law either.
Treading close to GD territory here, but I have to disagree with elfbabe. As the courts and lawyers use the term, “the law” is not merely constitution and statute law, but also regulations, interpretations of the law in judges’ opinions, customs, canons, and other things that govern how a case will be argued and ruled on.
“Separation of church and state” is a concept first voiced by Thomas Jefferson and nowhere found in the Constitution or statutes – but it’s been the underlying philosophy of virtually every court decision governing the relationships of the two institutions, being considered as implicit in the two religion clauses of the First Amendment.
So right, it’s not in constitution or statute, but it is “mandated in US law” in the sense of what a court will rule based on precedent and constitutional analysis.
Not in statute, but it is most certainly mandated in legal precedent pretty much since the founding of the republic.
I forgot to ask: Since Canada recognizes the Queen as the official head of state, do they also recognize the Church of England in any official capacity, and/or do they recognize the monarch’s role as head of the Church?
No. In practice Canada’s government is wholly secular. I think “God” is mentioned once in the Constitution, and their might be a parliamentary chaplain or something, but the Church of England doesn’t have an official role.
Separation of church and state is as legally true in Canada as it is in the USA - again, by legal precedent that expands on the basic freedom-of-religion provisions of the Constitution.
On the other hand, religious schools in Canada get state funding. In fact, the Catholic school board is a recognized public school system, equal to the secular school system. When I file my taxes, I have to indicate whether I want my school taxes to go to the catholics or the public system.
I’d say that’s not much of a seperation.
God is mentioned only once in our Constitution, but it’s at the very beginning of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms(bolding mine).
Don’t you just love the Charter?
Interesting. What control over the religious schools’ use of funds, like how can go, does the state get for collecting money for these schools.
Ok, ok, clarification time - what I MEANT was that the phrase “separation of church and state” does not originate in the US Constitution or federal law, but rather in a letter that Jefferson wrote to some Baptists. I was trying to point out that, though the phrase may not appear in the usual places that one would look for this sort of thing, that doesn’t mean that it’s not important. Must be more long-winded…
Rysto - Oh yes, so lovely. Especially the notwithstanding clause. It continues to amaze me that that thing isn’t trotted out on a daily basis… glares suspiciously at Ralph Klein
In Ontario, there are public Catholic school boards(an oxymoron, I know). So the provincial(rough equivalent of a state) government has complete control over it. The board is run by directors who are elected by the people who are served by the board, but the province can remove them if they see fit. I’m not if this can only happen certain situations or not, just that it happened about a year ago to several large boards.
As usual, Canada chose a confused compromise.
God is mentioned in the Charter. Most people who “lead” in Canadian society (pols, lawyers, docs) have public beliefs and private doubts.
When I started public school in 1977, we said the Lord’s Prayer daily. This was stopped around 1982 but our national anthem still says “God keep our land, glorious and free”.
The “divide” in the Liberal caucus due to church pressure not to advocate gay “marriage” (although civil union and rights are okay) echoes the divide between generations and rural/urban populations when it comes to religion. At least our courts are progressive.
I went to a theoretically secular, public elementary school in Manitoba between 1986 and 1991, and we said the Lord’s Prayer (in French!) in class. However, there was no religion class or anything of that sort. I’ve no idea if they still do, and I’ve never heard of anyone being hassled for not saying it.
Quebec used to be much more church-run, especially social services, but that went out with the Quiet Revolution. Until the last few years there were Catholic and Protestant public school boards, but now it is linguistically based.
The reason why this whole gay marriage hoo-ha is so dismaying to me is that I can’t remember another contentious political issue that’s dredged up so much Bible-thumping. I actually find it really offensive that one side is claiming its religious freedoms require that other people who don’t even go to their church be denied rights.
For the record, my city (Saskatoon) has a Catholic School Board Building, just like we have our Public School Board Building.
What’s the Quiet Revolution?
(and How quiet was it and how revolting?..bad da bing!!)
Of the 10 provinces, there are only three that continue to have publicly funded separate schools: Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta. The existence of the separate schools in these three provinces is constitutionally guaranteed by section 93 of the Constitution Act, 1867, as amended for Alberta and Saskatchewan by section 17 of the Alberta Act and section 17 of the Saskatchewan Act.
The general thrust of those provisions is that the religious minority in a school district, either Roman Catholic or Protestant, can establish a separate school on religious lines. The schools are public institutions, set up and operated under the Education Act of the province, with the same legal powers as the non-sectarian public schools, such as taxation. (The provincial governments in Alberta and Ontario have tinkered with the school taxation powers generally in the past decade, so I’m not being strictly accurate here, but you get the general point.) The separate school boards are elected under local election laws, same as the non-sectarian public schools, and the provincial governments are constitutionally required to fund the separate schools in the same way as the non-sectarian public schools, without any discrimination between the two systems.
The separate schools have to comply with general provincial laws governing school finances, curriculum, etc., but the courts have held that the religious minority’s right to set up a separate school includes the right to manage and control those schools, particularly decisions about the religious education they provide to their students.
In reply to the more general question posed in the OP, in the first Supreme Court case dealing with freedom of religion under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Supreme Court held that the guarantee of freedom of religion had a similar effect to the “establishment clause” of the First Amendment. The case was R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd. and involved the validity of a Sunday closing law. Speaking for the majority, Chief Justice Dickson explained the meaning of s. 2(a) of the Charter as follows, at p. 347:
[my bolding]
Based on this reasoning, the Court struck down the Sunday closing law as a breach of freedom of religion.