Canada’s human rights watchdog has branded national holidays for Christmas and Easter as prime examples of the country’s “history of colonialism”.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission’s ‘Discussion Paper on Religious Intolerance’ sets out to explore how various forms of religious discrimination have occurred both historically and in the present day.
The paper claims that discrimination against religious minorities is “grounded in Canada’s history of colonialism”, which “manifests itself in present-day systemic religious discrimination” in areas such as “the obvious example” of the national calendar.
‘Intolerant’
The Commission claimed: “Statutory holidays related to Christianity, including Christmas and Easter, are the only Canadian statutory holidays linked to religious holy days.
“As a result, non-Christians may need to request special accommodations to observe their holy days and other times of the year where their religion requires them to abstain from work.”
On social media platform X, formerly Twitter, users criticised the watchdog for attacking Canada’s “Christian foundations”.
One said: “Western countries, which are thriving democracies, were built by people grounded in Judeo-Christian values. The degradation of the faith, is in and of itself, is intolerant.”
This is a direct attack on the founding beliefs of this country. Western countries, which are thriving democracies, were built by people grounded in Judeo-Christian values. The degradation of the faith, is in and of itself, is intolerant.
— Kerry Ozard (@OzardKerry67475) November 21, 2023
University
In the UK earlier this year, The London School of Economics and Political Science decided to ditch the terms ‘Christmas’ and ‘Easter’ from its university calendar.
From this academic year, ‘Christmas break’ will become ‘Winter break’ and ‘Easter break’ will be known as ‘Spring break’.
Michaelmas Term and Lent Term have also been renamed ‘Autumn Term’ and ‘Winter Term’ respectively.
Brighton Uni: ‘Avoid saying Christmas to promote religious inclusion’
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