The Influence of Religious Beliefs in Canadian Political Sphere Essay

This essay delves into the significant influence of religious beliefs and norms on the Canadian political sphere. It examines the historical context of religious disagreements, the rise of ethno-cultural minorities, and the decline of traditional religiosity. The essay discusses how religious convictions impact party politics, policy decisions, and public discourse, including debates surrounding secularization, family values, and minority rights. It explores the interplay between religious institutions, political mobilization, and the evolving landscape of Canadian society, highlighting the role of faith-based communities and the impact of religious diversity on the political domain. The essay concludes by emphasizing the continuing significance of religion in Canadian politics and its influence on various social and political issues.

Running head: POLITICAL SCIENCE
POLITICAL SCIENCE
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1
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.

2
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.
4

3
POLITICAL SCIENCE
attributed by the elimination of faith-based practices and values from the governmental domain
and from financially aided organizations by the public in addition to the removal of public
support for religious based agencies. On the other hand, there can be witnessed contradictory
views regarding the extent to which Canadian society has moved in such a direction. However,
authors have claimed that there can be no second thoughts that state authorities have acquired
substantial portion of sharing of communal, social and educational services which have once
been identified as the province of religious institutions5. It has been argued that significance of
faith and religious beliefs have further been decreased in majority of the service organizations
which show high inclination towards religion. These institutions are specifically positioned the
areas whose operations have been subsidized by financial aids of public. These changes have
further exhibited a shift of public response towards the perception that faith and religious belief
are significantly considered as private matter and that church and state must be separated to some
extent at least in principle.
Meanwhile, it has been argued that secularization is also apparent in the prevalent
acknowledgement of the plurality of beliefs in Canada. Such plurality involves extensive public
as well as private classification of non-Christian beliefs and greater acknowledgement of
scepticism and atheism. It has been noted that notions of institutional and theological pluralism
have been predominantly an attribute of Canadian Christianity with several strands of
Protestantism parallel to Roman Catholicism. Comprehensive studies of authors have revealed
that since few decades, diversity has been intersecting with increasing populations of ethno-
cultural minority supporters to several Christian dominations6. Thus, to the view of authors,
5 Clarkson, Stephen. The big red machine: How the Liberal Party dominates Canadian politics. UBC press, 2014.
6 Fountain, Philip, Robin Bush, and R. Michael Feener. "Religion and the Politics of Development." In Religion and
the Politics of Development, pp. 11-34. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2015.

4
POLITICAL SCIENCE
without disregarding the diligence of discomfort with such diversity among supporters to
comprehensive arrays of beliefs, it can be justifiable to note that majority of Canadians have
gradually been embracing religious pluralism as an enduring feature of Canadian society and
thus taking positions in the Canadian political domain. Meanwhile, authors have argued that
Canada has been embracing the standards and principles that the understanding of religious faith
can differ across groups as well as individuals and are thus showing reassurance to the lack of
faith as well as religious belief practice within their communities as well as among their
neighbours7.
On the other hand, Williams et al. (2016) have thrown light on the continuing story of
religious and faith based conflict in Canada. Comprehensive studies of authors have claimed that
regardless of the significant changes in religious beliefs and public convictions in current times,
several political discussions concerning morality and the position of religion in the public
domain still tend to ignite conflict. Furthermore, they result to the mobilization of religious
institutions and form religious differences in voting patterns. These changes tend to undergo
changes over the time whereby certain spheres of continuing public contention withdraw from
the partisan arena. These issues consequently has led party leaders as well as strategists in
Canada to overlook appeals to specific religious communities or mounting queries regarding the
public role of faith and religion. Even with such avoidance of appeals these political party
leaders tend to shape their opinions and messages as per their beliefs which will resonate with
communities in Canada8. Wilkins-Laflamme (2014) has cited examples of the 2015 federal
election, the 2014 Quebec election as well as 2016-2017 Conservative Party of Canada
7 Thagard, Paul. "The Cognitive–Affective Structure of Political Ideologies." In Emotion in group decision and
negotiation, pp. 51-71. Springer, Dordrecht, 2015.
8 Banting, Keith, and John Myles. "Framing the new inequality: The politics of income redistribution in
Canada." Income Inequality: The Canadian Story. Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy (2016): 509-40.

5
POLITICAL SCIENCE
leadership. These political parties have shed light on the issues regarding public acceptance of
minority religious practices, specifically the ones related to Islam apparently as per the idea of
“Canadian values”. Furthermore, the Progressive Conservative proposal of providing financial
resources to religious-based education institutions has been identified as fundamental issues in
the election of Ontario in 2007 as well as elections held in between 2010 and 2014, where the
party sided with social traditions against the provincial government’s revised sexual health
curriculum9.
However, the persistent visibility of religious centric issues in Canadian party politics is
embedded partly in continued significance of religion for key suggestions of the populace. It is
further based on large extent on the fact that local places of worship tends to comprise of an ideal
grassroots foundation for the mobilization of public engagement. Authors have noted that
Conservative Protestant advocacy is in fact based on local churches and networks thus taking
advantages of consistent encounters within communities of believers. These community
believers are progressed by spiritual figures that constitute the benefitted podium from which to
successfully distribute calls to action or include associations of co-believers which political
supporters can organize. Furthermore, several social and political movements which depend on
institutions or associations can expect an advantage10. Meanwhile, it has been noted that Canada
has observed repeated large-scale political mobilization in reply to anticipated risk of customary
values and particularly initiatives in order to oppose support the women’s movement as well as
sexual minorities. These views are typically strengthened by liberalist readings of scripture. As
9 Williams, Andrew, Paul Cloke, Jon May, and Mark Goodwin. "Contested space: The contradictory political
dynamics of food banking in the UK." Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 48, no. 11 (2016): 2291-
2316.
10 Pontes, Ana Isabel, Matt Henn, and Mark D. Griffiths. "Assessing young people’s political engagement: A critical
and systematic literature review of the instruments used to measure political engagement." International Politics
Reviews4, no. 2 (2016): 55-72.

6
POLITICAL SCIENCE
authors have indicated that power of reformists in range of religious communities have often led
the way to seek reconsideration of established ethical stances. Even among supporters of
conservative religious communities, there can often be witnessed pragmatic adjustments to
shifting social and religious standards and principles specifically amongst the youths and
specifically on queries of sexual diversity. However, in recent years, religious driven interference
in political debates has been dominated by social conservatives and it has been religious
conservatives who have been in the forefront of such intervention11. Such defensive advocacy
emphasizes the timelessness of specific form whereby gender roles tend to interrelate and child-
rearing is considered to be the province of heterosexual marriage. Moreover, during the 2000’s
political parties on the right at the federal level and in certain areas turned up as the only
plausible associate in support of social conservatives who prioritized the kinds of challenges
which have been discussed. This has been identified as the direct outcome of such political
parties progressing sharply as per the steps of British Conservative Party established by Margaret
Thatcher and Ronald Reagan’s Republican in the United States12. Furthermore, there has been
certainly has been accepted opposition in Canada regarding religious and ethnic minority
associations in reply to the RCMP’s approval of Sikh turbans during early years of 1990’s and
the extension to Muslims of an Ontario religious-based negotiation system in 2005. Reports of
Eisenberg (2014) has revealed that in 2015, a federal Conservative Policy of eliminating
clothing, which will cover the face from citizenship ceremonies, have been promoted by
substantially increasing number of Christians13.
11 Moffitt, Benjamin, and Simon Tormey. "Rethinking populism: Politics, mediatisation and political style." Political
studies 62, no. 2 (2014): 381-397.
12 Wilkins-Laflamme, Sarah. "Toward religious polarization? Time effects on religious commitment in US, UK, and
Canadian regions." Sociology of Religion 75, no. 2 (2014): 284-308.
13 Eisenberg, Abigail. "Choice or identity? Dilemmas of protecting religious freedom in Canada." Recode Working
Paper Series (2014).

7
POLITICAL SCIENCE
Conclusion
Hence, to conclude, causes defended by religious and faith based conservatives have been
attracting significant number of secular supporters. Furthermore, conflicts and disagreements
between Catholic and Protestants and between proponents as well as opponents of ethnic
minorities’ privileges and rights have all invoked political issues. These instances act as
evidences for the claim that religion still plays a significant role in the domain of Canadian
politics and specifically in party politics. Furthermore, association with religious community
even today in Canada offers a form of social glue that is a range of institutions, which endows
with mechanisms for maintaining community and religious networks and mobilizing political
support as well as avenues for political parties to counterfeit local associations.

8
POLITICAL SCIENCE
Bibliography
Banting, Keith, and John Myles. "Framing the new inequality: The politics of income
redistribution in Canada." Income Inequality: The Canadian Story. Montreal: Institute for
Research on Public Policy (2016): 509-40.
Bickerton, James, and Alain-G. Gagnon, eds. Canadian politics. University of Toronto Press,
2014.
Clarkson, Stephen. The big red machine: How the Liberal Party dominates Canadian politics.
UBC press, 2014.
Eisenberg, Abigail. "Choice or identity? Dilemmas of protecting religious freedom in
Canada." Recode Working Paper Series (2014).
Fountain, Philip, Robin Bush, and R. Michael Feener. "Religion and the Politics of
Development." In Religion and the Politics of Development, pp. 11-34. Palgrave Macmillan,
London, 2015.
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.
Moffitt, Benjamin, and Simon Tormey. "Rethinking populism: Politics, mediatisation and
political style." Political studies 62, no. 2 (2014): 381-397.
Pontes, Ana Isabel, Matt Henn, and Mark D. Griffiths. "Assessing young people’s political
engagement: A critical and systematic literature review of the instruments used to measure
political engagement." International Politics Reviews4, no. 2 (2016): 55-72.
Rayside, David, Jerald Sabin, and Paul EJ Thomas. Religion and Canadian Party Politics. UBC
Press, 2017.

9
POLITICAL SCIENCE
Thagard, Paul. "The Cognitive–Affective Structure of Political Ideologies." In Emotion in group
decision and negotiation, pp. 51-71. Springer, Dordrecht, 2015.
Wilkins-Laflamme, Sarah. "Toward religious polarization? Time effects on religious
commitment in US, UK, and Canadian regions." Sociology of Religion 75, no. 2 (2014): 284-
308.
Williams, Andrew, Paul Cloke, Jon May, and Mark Goodwin. "Contested space: The
contradictory political dynamics of food banking in the UK." Environment and Planning A:
Economy and Space 48, no. 11 (2016): 2291-2316.