Photo courtesy of Cheri DiNovo.

Former politician Cheri DiNovo was raised an agnostic atheist and, from an early age, thought religion was silly. “I didn’t understand why people were religious,” she says. “I always wanted to have that conversation, but was embarrassed to ask because I saw that some of the Christians I knew were very smart people who did pretty amazing things. So how could they believe all this stuff?”

After her husband died in a traffic accident in the early 1990s, asking her faithful friends why they believe seemed less taboo. “I really got the experience of the faith community, as well as the powerful sense that we were not alone, and that it was love that was going to see [me and my children] through,” she says. “It wasn’t just up to me.”

The former Parkdale-High Park MPP left politics at the end of 2017 after an 11-year career that included tabling the most bills that had all three parties’ support, a feat that gave her the nickname “queen of tri-party bills.” She is now the minister at Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church in downtown Toronto. With her blond blunt-cut bob and clerical collar, she doesn’t look like a typical minister—and she isn’t one. As a relatively recent convert and an openly bisexual woman, DiNovo is the antithesis to the conservativism the Bible and Christianity are known for. And although the United Church is welcoming of the queer community, she recognizes the often fractured relationship it has with the church.

“Because I grew up without a religion, I didn’t really have the experience of a toxic religious background,” she says. “But so many of the people I meet do, especially from the queer community. That is a crying shame. That is horrendous.”

For queer Christians, DiNovo’s ministership is a godsend. In DiNovo’s new group of churchgoers, she estimates a quarter of the new members are from the queer community, and, through the group, are navigating through their negative past experiences with religion.

The United Church has technically accepted LGBTQ people since the late 1980s—a decision DiNovo estimates cost them a third of its members—but she is still working toward creating a safe and open space for the community. “We’re trying to be very intentional about being inclusive,” she says. In March, DiNovo asked people from the Trans Women’s Association to give the readings for a Lent service. The women spoke on the work they do and how the story of the crucifixion relates to LGBTQ people. “Of course, we’re not always perfect,” says DiNovo, “but that intentionality I think also builds an inclusive community.”

DiNovo has always been vocal about her left-leaning values as they pertain to religion. On Twitter, she’s referred to Jesus as “non-binary,” “racialized,” “the Jew,” and “the Communist.” In one of her first sermons, she said the apostle Paul was one of the reasons she converted to Christianity, and in the same breath she called him out for being misogynistic, homophobic, and anti-sex work. She believes people who use the Bible to spread hate are not actually reading it, that they are instead “[taking] a line out here, a line out there, and [using] it to beat our neighbour over the head with.”

DiNovo herself has been attacked for these values. Her 2017 TEDx Talk on why the Bible is a queer-positive book attracted disdainful comments from some Christian viewers, ranging from exhaustive rants about DiNovo’s “worldly approach” to the succinct “What a horrible woman!”

In another incident, following the first legal same-sex marriage in North America, which she officiated in 2001, she was berated on a homophobic website. The headline of the post reads, “The Sodomite Lesbian Juggernaut Continues to Roll!” with an image of a military tank rolling below the headline. “At the time, I thought that would make great T-shirts!” she says with a laugh.

Joking aside, DiNovo is quick to show empathy to a community that’s been historically deprived of it. “We need safe spaces. We need safe religious spaces,” she says. In a small way, she does that at the beginning of every sermon, which she opens saying: “Welcome to you, whatever you believe, whatever you don’t believe, whatever you’ve done, whatever you’ve left undone, whomever you love.”

DiNovo recalls an older man who wanted to become a minister in the 1970s, but had stopped himself from doing so because he was gay. “He’s now coming out to church—and that was the reason, he said, hearing that welcome,” says DiNovo. “He said, ‘I finally heard what I wanted to hear.’”

Photo courtesy Rahim Thawer.

Growing up in an Ismaili Muslim community in Toronto, there was no explicit acceptance of queer folks, says Thawer. “I simply did not know where to look to find other people like myself.”

At the age of 23, Thawer finally found his people at Salaam Canada, a social network and support group for those who identify as both Muslim and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer. The volunteer-run organization based in Toronto, which opened briefly in the 1990s but closed after two years due to violent responses and threats from other parts of Canada and the United States, reopened in 2000. Salaam now offers monthly gatherings and refugee support. It also hosts an annual Peace Iftar during Ramadan, and hosts meetings about human rights and social justice issues within the LGBTQ and Muslim communities.

Today, Salaam Canada is associated with over 20 organizations across Canada and others worldwide, including NAZ Male Health Organization in Pakistan and The Inner Circle in South Africa.

The traditional schools of Islamic law (and many other religions) consider non-heterosexual acts a sin. Many have been forced into arranged marriages, been shunned by loved ones, or forced out of their native countries in fear of being killed.

For Thawer, maintaining his faith while embracing his sexual and gender identity was a process of anticipating loss of community and friends, and then coping with that loss. “My identity formation centered on a belief that my queerness was a deficiency I should correct and compensate for,” says Thawer, who’s now part of the core organizing team of Salaam Canada. “I’ve overcome the weight of these experiences by surrounding myself with affirming people.”

As Thawer points out, offering the space and support to help reconcile one’s identity is a rare but critical service. “We then get to think about what could Islam mean for me if I was queer and trans? Does it have a place in my life? Do I want it to be a spiritual thing in my life or do I want to reclaim it as a cultural part of who I am?”

New Eid stamp, unveiled this May. Photo courtesy of Canada Post.

 I hadn’t been this excited about a stamp since I collected them back in Grade 6.

Canada’s first commemorative Eid stamp was unveiled just days before the holy month of Ramadan was set to start this May. I caught one of two launch events in Montreal. I expected to see Quebec’s mainstream media outlets well represented. But there was not a single journalist, beyond ethnic media, in attendance.

It reminded me of last summer, when the organization I work for, the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), along with community representatives, was holding six simultaneous press conferences across the country to launch the Charter for Inclusive Communities, a document that reaffirms Canadians’ commitments to inclusion and to express opposition to all forms of hate and discrimination. The launch was covered extensively in all but one province: Quebec.

Quebec media, it seemed, was only interested in Muslim stories when there was a bad-news angle.

At a 2016 NCCM youth workshop in Montreal exploring Islamophobia in the media, 94 percent of participants said they felt media portrayals of Muslims in Quebec were negative. This was the highest of Ontario, Alberta, and Manitoba, where we held similar workshops. “The media either intentionally or indirectly portray Muslims as outsiders [or] a threat,” noted one Montreal participant. “They still don’t have the literacy and awareness.”

This reality came into sharp focus following the tragic terrorist attack on a Quebec City mosque on January 29. Politicians, media, and community members alike immediately pointed to the province’s media landscape as a key driver of anti-Muslim attitudes. It was clear that the media landscape—specifically the French-language media—had been too often scapegoating, fear mongering, and promoting stereotypes about Muslims.

Universite Laval’s Colette Brin says the province’s shock-jock radio hosts frequently target minority groups, especially Muslims. “There’s this strong discourse [against] people who they see as wanting to change society, who are asking for special rights,” Brin told The Canadian Press following the massacre. “There’s the fear of Islamic terrorism and the generalization that the Muslims’ Islamic faith in general is the problem.” 

This has human rights implications. Galvanized by a far-right anti-Muslim group with a strong presence on Facebook, less than a handful of residents in Saint-Apollinaire voted this past July to reject the establishment of a Muslim cemetery. That was enough to scuttle the proposal.

Part of the problem is a lack of media representation. “[The media] don’t have information about real Muslims. They don’t ask Muslims about the real Islam,” a regular congregant at the Quebec City Islamic Cultural Centre, the site of the attack, told journalists. One host working for radio poubelle (literally “trash talk radio”) admitted that in all the years he’d been talking about Muslims, he’d never even invited a single community member on his program. That admission spurred at least one community activist to reach out and urge radio stations to invite Muslims onto their airwaves. There was only nominal interest, which quickly fizzled out.

Nevertheless, community members do acknowledge a change. “It made us all stop, breathe and do some deep thinking,” writes Montreal activist and interpreter Nermine Barbouch in an email. “Many haters, racists, and Islamophobes have even changed their minds and views. Regardless of their opinion on their fellow Canadian citizens of Muslim faith, they… did not want to be part of this crime and they did not want their words and [Facebook posts] to inspire other haters to insanity.”

Haroun Bouazzi, president of Association des Musulmans et des Arabes pour la Laïcité au Québec, agrees. “There is more sensitivity,” he says.

Individuals with anti-Muslim biases also seem to be getting less air time, says Shaheen Junaid, a Montreal board member with the Canadian Council of Muslim women. “The deaths of our six brothers was not in vain,” she says, seeming hopeful.

Public perceptions seem to be changing, too. Polling by Angus Reid show an upswing in positive attitudes toward Muslims in Quebec; doubling between 2009 and 2017, with the most positive level recorded shortly after the attack.

This doesn’t surprise Sameer Zuberi, a long-time Montreal resident who also works to promote greater understanding among diverse communities. “We were in the papers for a full week, being humanized on every page of the paper,” he says. “The average person who doesn’t have any deep-seated prejudices had their eyes open and it counter balanced to some extent the years of negative media on Quebec Muslims.”

Still, Zuberi says, Canadian media needs to recruit more Muslim journalists—and not just those writing about their own faith. At the Montreal Gazette, for instance, popular blogger Fariha Naqvi-Mohamed began writing a monthly column following the attack in Quebec City. Her most recent columns include reflections on the community spirit that emerged during the devastating floods that swept through parts of Quebec, as well as a profile of Big Brothers, Big Sisters of the West Island.

But it shouldn’t take a tragedy to convince media outlets that more positive coverage is necessary to help foster cohesive communities. Given mainstream media’s struggle to make a profit, reflecting diverse audiences—and therefore attracting more revenue—would be an obvious priority.

As for me, I’ll be out buying my commemorative stamp that too few Quebecers will likely know about or appreciate—unless our own communities shout the good news from the rafters.

He suffered through manageable bouts of Crohn’s disease for almost a decade, but that year, polyps appeared and, eventually, colon cancer showed up and invited prostate cancer and a misdiagnosed heart attack along to the party.

By the time his frail voice said over the phone, “You have to come,” my father’s body was falling apart and it was hard to tell which of these afflictions was going to kill him first. I took an open-ended compassionate leave-of-absence from work and joined him.

One July day, I walked into his room, with his lunch on a tray, and found him beside his bed stubbornly struggling to stand on his own. As he looked up at me, he slipped and landed hipbone-first on the floor, a pool of blood slowly forming around his head. He broke his hip and needed surgery—a procedure that his weak heart would not be able to endure, and so he did not get. A couple of weeks later—weeks when no one in our family slept while his moans played on repeat through the nights—he passed away.

The funeral, following Islamic tradition, involved men cleansing his body: bathing him, enshrouding him in a white linen cloth with only his face uncovered, and burying him as soon as possible.

Hours before the burial, his body lay in our living room for loved ones to pay their respects. An aunt’s husband approached me to share his condolences, but pulled back once I gave him my hand to shake. He apologized and explained, “I just washed myself for prayer.” My father would have laughed at that absurd misinterpretation of religion.

When it was time to take him to his burial plot in a cemetery a five-minute drive away, my sister and I stood up and began adjusting our veils—garments we had on out of respect for custom and had long forgotten how to wear.

But a male friend of the family looked at us and said: “You can’t come. Women grieve too loudly. Only men can take the body to the plot.”

Our mother said nothing. She was all too familiar with Islamic burial procedures. My sister and I, our faces wet with tears, filled with indignation, unsuccessfully fought to hold on to our father’s body.

It dawned on us that while we had become accustomed to gender equality in Canada—that we never needed men—at that moment, in Rabat, we were Muslim women with a dependent role in our own father’s funeral. And so the youngest of us, our brother, accompanied our father’s body along with men who had no blood relation to him. In a matter of minutes, and with no preparation or choice in the matter, he became the new head of our family.

The implication is that men are more capable of emotional restraint, more capable of handling grief. But my brother was no more capable of controlling his pain than I was, no more capable of stoicism at his father’s funeral than I was—because he’s human. Gendered activity and ritual cheated us both of this mourning experience. He couldn’t express himself, and I couldn’t properly say goodbye.

Back at my desk in Montreal, my hands eventually stopped shaking long enough for me to get to work. I dove into it with a fury, zipping through it both there and later in Toronto. By shutting out anything that made me human, I was preventing myself from falling apart.

But today, almost six years after my father’s death, I still don’t sleep through every night. I often wake up and wonder who, back home, is going to die next and when I’ll have to pretend to fit in again.

I looked for a therapist this past year, going through website after website inspecting names and faces. I barely checked credentials. What I was looking for was a brown face, an ethnic name—a professional who could understand how being an immigrant highlights my unrelenting grief. I settled on a South Asian woman. When I would let myself cry, she cried with me. When I told her about the constant guilt of living far away she nodded, understood.

Months into our sessions, when I finally asked her where she was from, she smiled and said “Here.”

Photo from the Catholic Education Resource Centre

On March 22, Pope Francis created a commission—of four men and four women—that will directly advise him  on policies regarding sex abuse. This has been done a year after Pope Benedict requested Catholic Church authorities around the globe create national guidelines on how to protect children in the Church by the end of May 2014.

One commission member in particular is getting extra media attention—Ireland native Marie Collins. She was abused by a Catholic priest, while she was in the hospital at the age of 13.

When she reported the sexual assault to church authorities, she was blamed. Since the abuser was a priest, she was told, he could do no wrong. She told the Vatican Insider, “When I left the hospital I was not the same child who had entered. I was no longer a confident, carefree and happy child. Now I was convinced I was a bad person and I needed to hide that from everyone.” With time Collins began speaking out, and hasn’t stopped.

Collins told the Toronto Star, “I’m going in there determined to speak up for what is needed. And I won’t be intimidated.”

This statement is easy to believe: it has been proven that Collins is a pushing force for change. After speaking in front of 100 bishops and 40 religious superiors at a 2012 symposium, telling them in graphic detail the abuse she suffered, it was clear her message was heard. RTE News reported that after the event, an African bishop approached Collins saying, “he never regarded the issue as a problem, but having heard Mrs Collins’ testimony, he had changed his mind.”

The Marie Collins Foundation is a U.K.-based organization created in 2009 in order to equip agencies “with the knowledge and understanding they need to respond to children who have been abused via the internet and mobile technologies.”

In her book, Seeking Wholeness, Catholic Bishop Marie Bouclin explains how many women feel after being sexually abused in the Church:

“They feel it was all a misunderstanding, not a case of deliberate abuse of power. They tend to forgive immediately, because, after all, Jesus forgave and the Gospels command us to do the same.”

She continues to write that these women are reluctant to seek any kind of therapy, because it may mean consulting someone who wouldn’t understand their religious beliefs.

Arguably, years of Church conditioning play into the fear of reporting assaults. On top of that, the majority of sexual assaults, in and outside of the Church, go unreported— despite the fact that over half of the female population has experienced some form of sexual abuse.

The Church has been gaining attention about pedophilia committed by clergymen for years, and it the crimes have gone on even longer. “Historically, the Church has typically addressed abuse as an internal matter,” reads a Public Safety Canada report, Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church. “Abusive priests received sanctions and treatment from specialized Catholic service agencies, with relatively few of the offending priests becoming involved in the criminal justice system.”

Roman Catholicism is the largest Christian religious group in Canada, and our country’s priests are not immune to these crimes. Joannes Rivoire, a former Iqaluit priest now hiding in France, refused to speak with The Canadian Press about his warrant for four reported incidents of sexual abuse.

Collins, and others working to widen the Church’s blind eye to its in-house crimes, will make it harder—ideally, impossible—for those like like Rivoire to run away.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna writes Gender Block every week and maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

-Slavoj Zizek

As we all move slowly into the second week of October, grabbing thicker jackets on our way out the door, wearing chunkier socks, drinking hotter beverages, we can see that in nature things are starting to change—leaves are rustier, grass is sparser and the last, desperate bees try for warmth indoors. Fall has this kind of grey realism about it—people mean business now. And as fall begins, the fall of corrupt institutions, kleptocratic governments and social inequities are given a chance to follow suit. After all, they have—as the leaves—worn out their welcome.

October has always been a month of protests: In 1917, the Bolsheviks led a revolt on Petrograd, beginning the first Socialist state; in 1969 the “Days of Rage” protestors took to the Chicago streets to voice their opposition to the Vietnam War; in 1990, Germany officially reunified after its Berlin wall came down; and, less commendably, in 1970, the FLQ kidnapped James Cross and Pierre Laporte in Montreal, executing Laporte.

However they manifested themselves, whether they were ultimately good or bad, the undercurrent in each of these protests was the same—something is wrong, and so something needs to change. Let’s kick off October by looking at this week’s protests (by no means is this a comprehensive list; it’s merely a smattering; feel free to add, in the comments section below, anything that I’ve missed!).

Idle No More

On Monday, Idle No More called a Global Day of Action to remember the October 7^th signing of The British Royal Proclamation in 1763, which legally mandated Canada to recognize Indigenous land rights. Groups across Canada convened to make their voices heard, and many people added videos to the Idle No More website showing support.

Shawn Atleo discusses the day’s significance:

250 years later, Indigenous peoples continue to struggle for sovereignty, especially against large-scale projects such as…

The Pipelines

Idle No More’s October 7 protests, in addition to remembering the Royal Proclamation, took aim at Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline, as well as the 14 other new or expanding oil and gas pipeline projects in Canada.

Torontonians meanwhile took to a concert near Finch station on October 6 to call attention to Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline, because, as you can see here, the pipe runs right through Toronto, (something Enbridge would rather we didn’t know).

Also, on October 9, protestors in Montreal disrupted the National Energy Board hearings on the Line 9 project, interrupting those speakers who supported the pipeline. Young protestors launched loudly into stories about a fictional “Mr. Enbridge”, making it difficult for the pipeline to be promoted.

Quebec had more than a pipeline to oppose though, as protestors continued to show their indignation over the misguided…

Charter of Values

On Sunday October 6, around 200 demonstrators in Quebec City gathered to again remind us all how ill-considered the Quebec Charter of Values—that proposed ban on noticeable religious symbols on public sector workers—really is. Adil Charkaoui, the Muslim leader who also organized September’s 5,000-strong protest in Montreal, led the demonstration.

Here’s a video from the protests (okay, this video is not October, it’s the September 29 protest. But hey, it’s the same astrological sign, so let’s watch it.)

Where and how people publicize their religion continues to be a source of contention, but I think we can all agree on when religion is used incorrectly. I speak of course about…

Westboro Baptist Church

Get Shot, a U.S. punk band, protested the WBC’s draconian anti-gay dogma this week in a rather unlikely way: They filmed a porno. Laura Lush, the group’s bassist, was filmed stripping and masturbating on the organization’s front lawn in Topeka, Kansas. She said, in a comment on Facebook, “As a bisexual woman and the bass player of a ridiculous punk band, I wanted to spread my legs and cause controversy.” The video, should you wish to see it, is somewhere on this site (NSFW).

And in other nude protest news…

Spain’s Anti-Abortion Plans (link: NSFW)

Activists for the feminist group FEMEN broke into a Parliamentary session in Madrid on Wednesday to voice opposition to the conservative government’s proposed abortion law reform, which would limit women’s access to abortions. FEMEN (NSFW link) is known for their topless protests, having staged them in such enclaves as the Vatican, the London Olympics, and a “Topless Jihad” in front of the Great Mosque of Paris.

As I said above, if you have any more to share, or if you have a burning opinion you just can’t hold onto much longer, feel free to drop in the comments section below!

Woodworth, a Conservative backbencher, recently proposed a private members motion to reopen the conversation on Section 223(1) of the Criminal Code, which states a child does not become a human being until it has “completely proceeded” from the mother’s body. The motion was quickly denounced by the opposition as well as the Prime Minister.

Stephen Harper said in a recent question period that he does not want the abortion debate reopened and he would vote against any move to do so. Many of Harper’s supporters at the rally were frustrated with his recent remarks and disappointed that a Conservative PM supposedly has no intention of supporting a bill that would restrict abortions.

Any time the word abortion enters into conversation in the media, or really anywhere, very strong public opinions—both for and against—come along with it.

I am not pro-abortion, but I am pro-choice. The anti-abortion rhetoric, to me, is a violation against women’s rights. If this country were ever to allow restrictions to be implemented on a women’s choice over her own body, we would be taking one giant leap backwards.

However, debate today is greatly different than in 1988, when the Supreme Court ruled to not put any legal restrictions on abortions. At that time, the Supreme Court’s ruling of Regina v. Morgentaler, found the Criminal Code of Canada was unconstitutional, because it violated women’s rights under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. With advancements in medical screenings the debate is no longer just a yay or nay discussion; it has become much more complex.

Major advances in science and maternal healthcare means genetic counselling is now a growing medical field. Through screening and family history, doctors are more capable than ever when it comes to determining if a child may be born with Down syndrome or have a predisposition to a variety of illnesses. What happens when we reach the point when we can find out with certainty that a child will grow up to have Parkinson, ALS or Alzheimer’s? Is it humane to let the fetus survive only to live a life of unspeakable pain and suffering? Female feticide is a regular occurrence in  China and India where boys are the preferred sex—and is now occurring in North America. Should parents be allowed to choose the sex of their child?

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions. Nobody does. But based on our advances in science and technology the abortion debate will only become more difficult as we move forward—new science-made options in family planning have generated a whole new avenue for heated argument.

The ongoing debate around not having the abortion debate within the House of Commons only confuses matters. The conversation needs to be reborn. We currently have no laws around abortions and it’s about time we enacted policy to officially protect women’s rights.

As Andrew Coyne wrote in his April 27th column for the National Post: “Possibly, after a full and open debate, we might decide we wished to continue to have no abortion law—by policy, rather than by default. That is how a democracy decides such questions. It does not leave them to a tie vote of the Senate.”

We live in a democratic society where issues are openly discussed and voted on by the individuals we have elected into power. Would it be wrong or dangerous to reopen the discussion? I strongly doubt it.  It would be wrong and dangerous not to reopen the debate in a democratic nation. By not allowing this to be discussed within the House of Commons, it would sent a precedent that could prevent other major issues from seeing the floor. We live in a progressive country, a country where church and state are separated, and I think there are enough sound minded individuals who can make the right decision.

Creative commons photo by Flickr user strangedejim.

That Catholic schools do not always look positively upon homosexuality may not come as a great surprise, given their collective track record. But in the past week, two news stories have brought new and unique anti-gay measures taken at Catholic schools to light.

First, officials at Missisauga’s St. Joseph’s Catholic  Secondary School allegedly restricted students’ use of rainbow banners at an anti-homophobia fundraiser, and then forbade them from donating the event’s proceeds to a gay rights charity.

In a second, separate, and more bizarre incident, comedian Dawn Whitwell was booked to speak at an anti-bullying assembly at Bishop Marrocco-Thomas Merton Catholic Secondary School in Toronto, but her performance was quickly cancelled when, she says, it was discovered she is married to a woman. Both schools say their actions were not motivated by an anti-gay bent and it is doubtful anything more will come of these allegations. But the Catholic school boards of Canada should recognize, in these stories, the need for them to reform, and return to theology as opposed to policing sexuality, lest their students abandon Catholic schools altogether.

Church attendance in Canada, and indeed around the world, went into a tailspin in the latter half of the twentieth century and seems unlikely to recover in our lifetimes. But the Catholic Canadians who now stay home from church in droves are not, according to a 2000 University of Lethbridge study, abandoning their religion. Rather, they are finding their own ways in which to worship.

The study attributed this new trend to people’s disillusionment with the church — as opposed to opposition to faith itself. Their problems were with the institution, not the teachings of the religion. It was the Church, not Catholicism, that was speaking out against gay marriage, contraception, and abortion — topics that divided many congregations. While people were looking to the religion itself for the values and morality they wanted, the Church was imposing hard and fast rules that a significant number of Catholics didn’t want or agree with.

Parents send their children to faith-based schools so that they can learn about their culture and religion, and grow up in an environment that recognizes that religion and the lessons it imparts. The Toronto Catholic District School Board’s website provides a great insight into the appeal of Catholic school. It has a page detailing the Board’s Equitable and Inclusive Educations strategy. It quotes St. Paul and discusses the open and accepting tenets of Catholicism, which is supposed to be applied to Catholic school  education. The intended message is that Catholic School will teach your children about their religion, instilling in them positive values of faith and tolerance.

And looking at that explanation, it is easily understandable why parents would want to send their kids to a Catholic school. But wanting your child to learn about the ancient teachings of Christ and the Apostles is very different from wanting your child to be subject to the institutional rules and judgments of school administrators, just as practising Catholicism can be very different from following the dogma of the Vatican.

There are plenty of examples of Catholic reformers working within the Church to change its doctrines on birth control, ordaining women, and embracing sexual minorities. There is no rule in Catholicism that Catholics can’t support LGBT rights or listen to a gay person present their feelings on bullying. The schools may say that Catholic teachings were the criteria that caused the rainbow-ban and Whitwell decisions to be made, but the fact is that they were not “Catholic” rules. They were rules imposed by the institution, lead by some individual or group of individuals who acted under the guise of channeling Catholicism. And, as such, they are rules that are apt to alienate students and parents alike.

Followers of a religion can be expected to adhere to, or at least respect, the guidelines of their religion. But rules made by a bureaucratic official based loosely on his or her interpretation of that religion’s teachings cannot be expected to inspire adherence. In fact, they are probably more likely to offend, especially when those interpretations result in the exclusion and intolerance that the religion ostensibly condemns. So, in the same way that people pushed back against the rules imposed by the Catholic Church, people may well begin pushing back against the rules imposed by Catholic schools, unless some action is taken to return to the positive values the TCDSB extols.

There is, and may always be, a debate over whether faith-based schools should be abolished in Canada. And in that debate there are many reasons to support abolishment, schools’ opposition to sexual diversity being among them. But the greatest argument in favour of keeping faith-based schools may be the large number of students who continue to enroll in these programs. Those numbers are essentially a straw poll of people’s support for religious education. Because of this, Catholic schools need their students, perhaps even more than students need their schools. If their flock abandons them to the same degree that the Church’s did, the Catholic school system will lose its greatest remaining reasons for survival and isn’t likely to be around for much longer. Whether that’s for the best or not is up to the parents and children to decide. But in the coming years, if institutional intolerance continues on, faithful Catholics may begin questioning just how well the Catholic school system represents their Christian values.

The following are the countries that supported the amendment (79): Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belize, Benin, Botswana, Brunei Dar-Sala, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, China, Comoros, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Republic of Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

The countries that abstained (17): Antigua-Barbuda, Barbados, Belarus, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Colombia, Fiji, Mauritius, Mongolia, Papau New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Vanuatu.

The countries that were absent (26): Albania, Bolivia, Central African Republic, Chad, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Honduras, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Marshall Island, Mauritania, Nauru, Nicaragua, Palau, Sao Tome Principe, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, Togo, Tonga, Turkey, Turkmenistan.

Abdelkader Belaouni, who spent nearly four years living in church sanctuary before being granted status. Illustration by Todd Julie.

Free at last. After three years and nine months thwarting a deportation order in the sanctuary of a Montreal church, Abdelkader Belaouni became a Canadian citizen in October 2009.

Belaouni was one of the refugees I spoke to for my article “Gimme Shelter” in This Magazine’s July-August 2009 issue. At the time, he was living in the shelter of a century-old house on the grounds of Saint Gabriel church, in the Pointe-St-Charles neighborhood in Montreal. [That article is nominated for a National Magazine Award, by the way! – Ed.]

In June 2009, after almost four years of tireless campaigning on the part of his supporters (and just after the issue went to press) victory came in the form of a telephone call. Belaouni’s lawyer Jared Will, called to say the Quebec government was going to allow him to stay in the country on humanitarian grounds.

First though, he would have to complete a medical examination in Tunisia, which borders his native Algeria. The Canadian government demands such examinations for all immigrants in an effort to prevent strain on Canada’s health care system. Belaouni was worried that he might not pass the examination; he is legally blind and suffers from diabetes.

Nonetheless, he began fundraising for the trip. With the support of his friends, Belaouni collected over $10,000 from donors across Canada. He flew to Tunisia on September 23. Four weeks later, Belaouni received a call from the Canadian embassy in Tunisia. He had passed the medical examination and his Canadian visa was ready.

On October 22, he was back in Canada, now his home. His almost four year stay in sanctuary paid off. He joins the more than 150 refugees who’ve avoided deportation with a stay in church sanctuary.

The congregations act as safety nets for what they see as holes in Canada’s immigration system, namely the lack of a formal appeal system in the refugee determination process. A bill (C-291) that would see a formal appeal system implemented was being tossed around parliament at the time “Gimme Shelter” went to print. But in December 2009, it was defeated at third reading in the House of Commons. The vote was tied. The speaker broke it with a vote against.

Belaouni is grateful for the safety net his friends at Saint Gabriel’s church provided. He and his supporters say he was unfairly treated by the refugee determination system, and that a stay in sanctuary was the only remaining option. Today he lives in Saint Hubert, just east of Montreal, in a one-bedroom apartment. He looks healthier than the last time I saw him. He tells me he lost 10 lbs—credited, he says, to his daily exercise routine and raw-food diet.

He is also fulfilling many of his dreams. The album he completed while living in sanctuary is now available on iTunes. He has two books in the works, one about his life and the other about the Algerian revolution. He is also set to start work at an immigration center in Montreal at the end of May.

I caught up with him on May 17, the day before his 43rd birthday. Here are a few minutes of our chat.