Who is this issue troubling to, and why?
The great German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said that, “Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.”
Obviously, he wasn’t referring to Winnipeg NDP MP Pat Martin, but he could have been.
Martin, you see, is outraged that Winnipeg has given Youth for Christ, an evangelical non-profit group, $2.6-million to help it build a 50,000-squarefoot downtown complex to help troubled youth.
What’s more, it appears that Ottawa is about to send a matching grant to help the buttress the faith group’s planned $11-million investment in the project.
You would think that Martin, being a New Democrat and all, would be delighted at any project designed to help troubled youth. After all, he does represent a party which likes to claim ownership of human compassion (always defining the level of commitment by just how many of your tax dollars are dedicated to the project.)
And Winnipeg, heaven knows, has more than its fair share of troubled youth.
So what’s the problem, you ask?
Two things, according to Martin. First, Canada is a “secular state” and Youth for Christ is clearly unsecular. Second, giving money to this group violates the concept of the “separation of church and state.”
To cite the abovementioned Nietzsche quote again, Martin has expressed his “convictions,” but - although he may be sincere, he is factually wrong on both counts - which makes his views “more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.”
On the oft-repeated (by the left, in particular) conviction that Canada is a “secular state,” let us simply refer to the opening paragraph of Part 1 of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms which says: “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law.”
While it must be difficult for socialists who worship at the alter of the Supreme State, as opposed to a Supreme Being, nevertheless, the wording makes it abundantly clear that Martin’s conviction that Canada is a “secular state” is - how shall we say this? - dead wrong.
Turning our attention now to that other old chestnut about violating the “law” of the “separation of church and state,” here again, Martin is wrong.
No such concept exists in Canadian law. Nada.
The ultimate irony, from a party which constantly bemoans anything which smacks of “U.S.-style” policies, is that the “separation of church and state” is an American construct. It has no bearing whatsoever on Canadian law.
Not only that, it is routinely distorted - witness Martin’s attempt to block a government grant because of it - as an idea which protects the State from the Church. In fact, it was the other way around, a way to protect the Church from the State, designed by the U.S. founders as a way to escape what they hated about Britain, i.e. the compulsory imposition of a State Religion, i.e. the Church of England, upon the populace.
It was popularized by Thomas Jefferson in his famous 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists when he wrote that, “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”
That’s where the phrase came from, but the idea was written into the U.S. Constitution as the First Amendment. It does not appear in Canada’s constitution. Period.
Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz says the city has worked with YFC for many years and approving their plans was a “no-brainer. When an organization is making an $11-million investment in the at-risk youth of our city on a piece of property that no on wants to touch, that’s something to get behind.”
And Vic Towes, Manitoba’s senior federal cabinet minister, says the project meets all federal criteria for funding. “I don’t know what Pat Martin’s problem is. We’ve got a Jewish mayor supporting Youth for Christ, so let’s put aside any idea of this being a group of religious fanatics.”
How about the idea of “secular fanatics,” which is what Martin and much of the NDP seems to be? Never mind that this investment will help thousands of troubled youth in one of Canada’s major cities, it’s tied in with religion and therefore it’s bad.
Or, as Winnipeg politics professor Christopher Leo told the Globe and Mail, “a religious institution receiving public funds to provide services is a grey area and it’s troubling.”
Troubling? To whom? And why?
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