Ontario politician proposes ending daily “Our Father” at provincial legislature

Toronto, Canada, Feb 16, 2008 / 08:09 am

The Premier of Ontario on Wednesday asked the Ontario legislature to end its daily recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, LifeSiteNews reports.

Premier Dalton McGuinty, a Catholic, said the prayer does not reflect the Canadian province’s multicultural diversity.

"I've asked for a parliamentary committee, with representation from each of the parties and the Speaker's involvement as well, to take a look at how we can move beyond the Lord's Prayer to a broader approach that is more inclusive in nature," he said, according to LifeSiteNews.

"I think it's time for us to ensure that we have a prayer that better reflects our diversity," he continued.  "We're much more than just Protestants and Catholics today. We have all the world's faiths represented here. If they're represented outside the legislature, I think we ought to find a way to ensure that diversity is reflected inside the legislature as well."

Catholics, Protestants, and other Christians make up at least 70 percent of the Canadian nation.  The 2001 census found that more than 2/3 of Ontario’s population was Christian, despite a significant influx of immigrants since the 1960s.  The province’s Muslim population has more than doubled since 1991.

Opposition leader John Tory backed McGuinty’s recommendation, and New Democratic Party House Leader Peter Komos said his own party was “intrigued” by the proposal.

Michael D. O’Brien, a Catholic author, artist, and thinker who lives in Ontario, spoke to LifeSiteNews.com in criticism of the proposal.  McGuinty’s effort, he said, "is not a move for fostering diversity" but one that aims at the "homogenization of identity."

"It is a move toward the slow steady collapse into a generalized ethos of 'sameness', which is mistaken for the equality we all treasure in this land," O’Brien said.  He called the move part of the "step-by-step erasure of Canada's fundamental identity as a Christian nation" and suggestive of more action to follow.

"Ontario has been, and will continue to be, in the vanguard of the deconstruction of the moral order in Canada. Of course, ironically, this latest proposition will be promulgated as a 'moral' step forward,” he told LifeSiteNews.