Influence of Religious Beliefs on Canadian Politics

Running head: POLITICAL SCIENCE
POLITICAL SCIENCE
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POLITICAL SCIENCE
Introduction
Recent discussions in Europe and the United States have shed light on tensions
surrounding the role of faith, convictions and the expressions of religious beliefs and sentiments
in the public sphere. Several debates and criticism have erupted over the wearing of hijab along
with public demonstrations of religious assets and belonging. Similarly, in the domain of
Canadian politics, role of faith tends to serve decisive role. Regardless of secularization,
communal liberalization along with a decline in denominational peculiarities in selection of
political parties, religious communities have significantly influenced Canadian politics through
continuing ways. According to Rayside, Jerald Sabin and Paul EJ Thomas (2017), the issue of
religious diversity that has leveraged public policy in Canada for several years has taken on new
extents that influence the internal dynamics of political organizations and conflicts between
them. Religious convictions have been regarded as not as controlling or influential as a force as
they used to be1. The thesis statement of the essay is “Religious beliefs and norms have been
influencing the Canadian political sphere.”
Discussion
At one point, religious beliefs have treated an assessment of Catholic-Protestant
disagreements. In recent decades, it has been shedding light on conflict between ethical
traditionalists and social developments across the array of faith commitments. Thus, in the past
few decades, several scholars have paid attention to the mounting visibility of ethno-cultural
minorities within Christian religious and ethnic communities and to the partisan echoes of
progression in the dimension of non-Christian religious minorities. Comprehensive studies of
Medeiros and Noël (2014) have noted that the striking decline in religiosity all across Canada
1 Rayside, David, Jerald Sabin, and Paul EJ Thomas. Religion and Canadian Party Politics. UBC Press, 2017.

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POLITICAL SCIENCE
since the 1950’s has implied to the fact that religious power in party conflicts typically appear to
be historical artefacts2. Parties tend to vary on the role of government, economic management,
ecological policy, unlimited trade along with health care transformations and education
expenses. Meanwhile, Bickerton and Gagnon (2014) are of the opinion that party leaders who
show religious sentiments typically evade the subject of changing family values at most effective
minor policy concessions to religious and cultural conservations requiring reviewing discussions
over abortion as well as sexual minority authorities. Such lack of effective approach draws
variance from party politics in the United States where discussing such issues is considered to be
highly important and expressions of conservative religious faith show utmost visibility3.
Furthermore, according to Clarkson (2014) the approach fluctuates with a range of European
party systems whose fundamental centre-right parties are embedded in a Catholic tradition
despite of destabilized explanations. Likewise, Medeiros and Noël (2014) are of the opinion that
such these religious beliefs draw variance to a perception that religion has never served as a
decisive role in sphere of Canadian party politics4. These divergences further interpret into the
view with the exclusion of extensive denominational affiliations which long ago lost their
associations to severe policy divergences and which currently border on the insignificant and
negligible.
While arguing that Canada has developed utmost secularization, authors have shed light
to the decline of faith, belief and religious practice. Furthermore, Clarkson (2014) has thrown
light to the institutional demarcation of trust, belief and politics which have further been
regarded as institutional differentiation. Authors thus are of the view that such decline is
2 Medeiros, Mike, and Alain Noël. "The forgotten side of partisanship: negative party identification in four Anglo-
American democracies." Comparative Political Studies 47, no. 7 (2014): 1022-1046.
3 Bickerton, James, and Alain-G. Gagnon, eds. Canadian politics. University of Toronto Press, 2014.
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