Is Christmas saved from being labeled racist?

Did the Bloc Quebecois just save Christmas? It appears that the House of Commons says yes, when they unanimously adopted a motion rejecting a new report vilifying Christmas as currently celebrated. Block Quebecois Leader, Yves-Francois Blanchet, raised the issue when, in question period, he asked “Is Christmas racist?” His effort was not without context.

According to a Canadian Human Rights Commission report from October 23, our celebration of Christmas and Easter could be a form of ‘religious intolerance.’ In a paper entitled “Discussion Paper on Religious Intolerance,” the group cited these holidays as examples of “present-day systemic religious discrimination” against religious minorities grounded in our history of colonialism.

Since no other holy days, recognized by other religions, are recognized with statutory days off, adherents of these faiths must request ‘special accommodations to observe their holy days.’ Again, the identity of Canada as a settler colonial state resurfaces with a tie to residential schools where the report says 150,000 children were forced to attend ‘compulsory boarding schools’, and converted to Christianity.”

Despite the clear multi-culturalism of our country, the panel says current social preferences are designed to favor white, male, Christian, English-speaking, fit, able-bodied, heterosexual, gender conforming, individuals. This is the clear language of intersectionality at work. Discrimination is said to happen because some workplaces schedule team meetings on days that are holy to Muslims, Jews, or other faiths. 

The language mirrors similar statements in the US by the Anti-Defamation League when it says to educators, in a report titled, Imagine a World Without Hate (Religion in Public Schools), “it is important that all students feel comfortable and accepted in their schools. Symbols of religious holidays may make some students uncomfortable and unwelcome because their holidays and traditions are not represented or because they do not celebrate religious holidays at all.” 

The wording from Bloc Quebecois House Leader Alain Therrien, the day after Blanchet’s question (Is Christmas racist?), called for the House to denounce the Commission’s paper. The motion says that the House should “recall that Christmas is a tradition celebrated in Quebec and Canada,” and that it should “denounce the CRHC’s statement that ‘statutory holidays related to Christianity, including Christmas and Easter,’ represent an ‘obvious example’ of ‘systemic religious discrimination,’ and that this ‘discrimination against religious minorities in Canada is grounded in Canada’s history of colonialism.”

In Quebec’s National Assembly, 109 MNAs united by declaring “the assembly denounces any attempt at polarization toward unifying events, which have been part of Quebec’s heritage for several generations.”

With the unanimous denunciation in the Assembly and the House, the CHRC responded with a statement saying “When the Commission’s academic discussion paper mentions Christmas it is in the context of statutory holidays. It explains that based on current Canadian law, providing a statutory holiday for one religion, and not providing reasonable accommodation for other religions, may be discrimination…. Put another way, if you observe a non-Christian religious holiday in Canada, you might have to take the day off work-assuming your employer will give you permission to do so… This has a real effect on people’s lives that may not be visible to those who already get the day off to observe their traditions.”

It didn’t take Parliament long before the leaders of the two main parties twisted the celebration of Christmas in Canada into an issue around climate change.