(LifeSiteNews) — Christian organizations say the Trudeau government is still discriminating against faith-based employers applying for summer job grants.
The Department of Employment has continued to discriminate against Christian employers applying for summer job grants, according to concerns sent by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada to the House of Commons human resources committee and published by Blacklock’s Reporter this month.
“We are now concerned the values screening has moved behind closed doors,” the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada wrote to the Commons human resources committee.
Last October, the committee requested information from summer job applicants regarding the process as part of an ongoing review of the program.
“The review process involves a case by case assessment of applications that can be subjective, arbitrary, inconsistent, unpredictable, lacking in transparency and which in some cases seems to involve ideological screening,” the Christian organization continued. “We have heard from enough faith-based groups that we are concerned these are not just isolated incidents.”
Discrimination against Christian organizations began in December 2017 when the Liberal government under the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mandated that employers sign an “attestation” that they agree with abortion and transgender “rights” to be eligible to receive summer job grants.
The new law, aimed at pro-life organizations like Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), mandates that in order to receive federal job grants, employers must attest that: “Both the job and the organization’s core mandate respect individual human rights in Canada, including the values underlying the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as other rights”
“These include reproductive rights and the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of sex, religion, race, national or ethnic origin, color, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression,” it continued.
The move sparked outrage from pro-life organizations across Canada, with the Right to Life Association of Toronto and the Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform of Calgary filing lawsuits.
In December 2018, Employment, Workforce and Labour Minister Patty Hajdu announced the federal government was scrapping the controversial 2018 Canada Summer Job attestation.
However, the new attestation for 2019 states: “Any funding under the Canada Summer Jobs program will not be used to undermine or restrict the exercise of rights legally protected in Canada.”
Further, the following question was added to the Canada Summer Jobs application form for 2019, asking applicants to specify “how your organization will be providing a safe, inclusive, and healthy work environment free of harassment and discrimination.”
However, according to the Evangelical Fellowship, federal employees are still “flagging some faith-based groups’ applications for review or deeming them ineligible for Canada Summer Jobs grants” merely because of their Christian beliefs.
“There is little transparency or consistency,” wrote the Fellowship. “We see that in this process sometimes groups are being flagged because of their beliefs, not their actions.”
In one case, the Fellowship revealed that the employment department was clearly “looking for reasons” to deny funding to hire a camp counsellor at a Christian camp.
“An applicant involved in providing summer camp to hundreds of children was informed of a Google review in which a parent complained their child, a camper, got a sunburn at day camp,” the Fellowship explained. “This triggered a Service Canada request for proof of workplace safety.”
“Some faith-based groups have been asked to provide their statements of faith and to explain their religious doctrine,” the Fellowship wrote MPs. “Some applicants also describe being subject to excessive scrutiny,” it added.
In addition to the Fellowship, the Canadian Centre for Christian Charities reported cases in which Christian churches were questioned on their doctrine when applying for student job grants.
“For example, churches are asked why assistant ministers or similar ministerial roles need to adhere to a doctrinal statement or statement of beliefs,” wrote the Centre.
“The perception of different treatment for religious charities is not without merit,” the Centre added. “This perceived differential treatment is most often experienced by way of follow-up requests that focus almost exclusively on the applicants’ religious beliefs.”
Jack Fonseca of CLC told LifeSiteNews that this discrimination against Christians is only the beginning of Trudeau’s tyranny against Christian and pro-life Canadians.
“Welcome to Trudeau’s Canada in 2024, which is resembling more and more Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union in 1928, when the brutal communist dictator launched his ‘Godless Five-Year Plan’ to disestablish religion. Under Stalin’s plan, churches were stripped of their property and shuttered,” he declared.
“Is that sounding a bit familiar? Like Stalin, Trudeau is following his own Godless Five-Year Plan to disestablish religion,” Fonseca continued.
“Denying churches and faith-based groups access to federal programs is but one element,” he explained. “Trudeau’s inciting the burning of almost 100 churches to the ground over a hoax of mass graves of Indigenous children, which turned out to be rocks and tree roots was another. Trudeau’s announced but not yet implemented plan to strip pro-life crisis pregnancy centers of their charitable tax status is another.”
“Christians in Canada must wake up and realize that Justin Trudeau is the most dangerous man in Canadian political history,” he warned. “He is a Stalin wannabe who dreams of dictatorial power, as he once mused out loud about the country he most admired in the word, China, because of its ‘basic dictatorship.'”
“I also hope that fresh lawsuits will emerge against the Liberal governments discriminatory approach to the Canada Summer Jobs grant applications, and that federal courts will once again slap down this disgusting and unconstitutional discrimination,” Fonseca declared.