Canadian Armed Forces prayer ban

Canadian military Bishop Scott McCaig says he wants the federal government to go “back to the drawing board” with its new policy on prayer in official settings.

Doubtless according to plan, bureaucratic banishment of public prayer by Canada’s military chaplains went virtually unnoticed amid the perpetual media crisis that filters into Canadian summer consciousness.

While completing my last term as a citizenship judge in 2018, I got an email from Ottawa with the directive: “Every citizenship ceremony will (now) be opened by a First Nations Elder, offering a Native Spirituality Prayer.”

Despite the calls of several Conservative Members of Parliament, including Andrew Lawton, new military personnel instructions from the current Liberal government are not novel attacks on religious freedom.