Mr. Speaker, in 1981, Canada enacted the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees religious freedoms in strong terms. It means we cannot deny a job to a qualified applicant because we do not agree with their religious beliefs, as the Ontario law society recently did to graduates of Trinity Western University.
If lawyers pass the bar exam and have had a thorough legal education, it is beyond belief that they would be excluded from legal practice because of the religious beliefs of their school about marriage.
If anti-religious ideologues have led the Ontario law society to adopt such an extreme discriminatory measure, it is time for progressive-minded rights advocates to speak out loudly.
Such tyranny never stops with a single victim. This is not just a Trinity Western University issue, not just a law society issue; it is not even just a Christian minority issue. It is an issue for anyone who advocates for freedom from tyranny.