Minister rejects plea from faith groups
OTTAWA • A coalition of Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups says a face-to-face meeting with Employment Minister Patty Hajdu in Ottawa last week ended in disappointment as they were told there will be no compromise — at least for this year — on the Canada Summer jobs attestation on abortion rights.
“In spite of our ongoing efforts at dialogue with the government ... it has been made clear to us by the minister that there will be no accommodation provided, and no changes made to the attestation for this year,” says a joint letter released Wednesday.
“While we welcome a review of the application process for 2019 and have asked the minister to be included in the process of changing the policy, we are extremely disappointed that the government has chosen not to make adjustments to the program for this year.”
The letter is signed by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, the Rabbinical Council of America, the Canadian Council of Imams, the Christian Legal Fellowship, the Canadian Council of Christian Charities, the Catholic Women’s League of Canada and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. The meeting took place on March 21.
Hajdu has said that the attestation, which requires that an organization’s “core mandate” respect reproductive rights, is aimed at the primary activities of an organization and that faith-based groups who aren’t focused on protesting abortion rights should feel free to sign. But many religious groups have said they can’t separate their beliefs and values from their core mandate, and can’t sign the attestation in good conscience.
This year the government rejected any Canada Summer Jobs application that either didn’t check off the attestation or included a clarification or modification of it. In 2017, only 126 of more than 40,000 applications were rejected as incomplete; this year the newly added attestation caused rejections to jump to 1,561.
The rejected groups were allowed to re-submit, and many did so with a cover letter asking for accommodation for their religious and conscience beliefs. But the government has not budged, and final rejection letters are expected to be sent out soon.
“This leaves hundreds of programs across the country vulnerable,” the letter says. “These groups must now consider modifying or cancelling programs, while others will be forced to launch emergency fundraising campaigns. It is disheartening to think that this whole situation could have been avoided.”
Earlier this week, Hajdu told the Huffington Post there could be some clarification of the attestation next year, but said the goal of keeping grants away from groups protesting abortion would remain.