A Canadian government panel in charge of human rights law says celebrating Christmas and Easter holidays could be seen as a form of “religious intolerance.”
In a paper released last month, the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) cited Christianity’s two biggest holy days as examples of “present-day systemic religious discrimination” because they are statutory holidays in Canada.
According to the “Discussion Paper on Religious Intolerance” paper published on Oct. 23, “discrimination against religious minorities in Canada is grounded in Canada’s history of colonialism,” which, the paper states, finds its most “obvious example” in Canadian statutory holidays “related to Christianity.”
Because Christmas and Easter are the only Canadian statutory holidays linked to religious holy days, the report argues that “as a result, non-Christians may need to request special accommodations to observe their holy days …”