| Written by Michael Swan, The Catholic Register,
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 Cheri DiNovo, MPP for Parkdale-High Park and ordained minister in the United Church of Canada The Christian prayer in its Protestant form, with the concluding doxology (“For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.”) is used to open daily sittings of the Ontario legislature. The politicians also recite a non-denominational prayer.
“I see far greater issues on the government’s table right now than this,” said Cheri DiNovo of the New Democratic Party. DiNovo is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada.
DiNovo last year proposed that a prayer and meditation space be set aside at Queen’s Park for legislators and staff of all faiths and none. In deference to people who don’t believe in any God, she proposes to call the room “A Place for All People.”
“My move was not to abolish the Lord’s Prayer but to expand the conversation,” DiNovo told The Catholic Register. “What I thought would be a good corrective would be to have a place where all people could pray — where they could all meet their religious obligations.”
DiNovo said she was surprised when first elected to Queen’s Park to find that an institution as important as the legislature lacked the kind of prayer and meditation space one expects to find in hospitals, prisons and airports.
Conservative MPP Frank Klees warns that Ontario’s legislature should not turn its back on its heritage.
“When we talk about the need to be open, I don’t believe that also means that we do away with everything we have embraced as a culture historically,” Klees said.
Parliamentary history requires that there be a place for prayer in political deliberations, Klees said.
“When the first parliament was established in London at Westminster Abbey the main hall was the church itself. The altar was removed to make room for the speaker’s chair. That is why to this day there are prayers before proceedings. Also, it’s the reason why members bow toward the speaker’s chair before leaving the House,” he said.
Two of Canada’s provincial legislatures have done away with prayer at the start of the day, in Quebec and Newfoundland. New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island both use the Lord’s Prayer, but P.E.I. legislators recite it behind closed doors before opening the session to the public.
All the remaining provincial assemblies use some form of non-sectarian prayer, often rotating the prayers or leaving their selection to the discretion of the speaker.
In Ottawa the Senate has been using a non-denominational prayer since 1991 and the House of Commons since 2004.
The attitude of Ontario legislators during recitation of the prayer is often less than prayerful, DiNovo said.
“To talk about the lack of decorum at Queen’s Park one would be talking for the next few months,” she said.
DiNovo finds the Lord’s Prayer an important part of her day in the legislature.
“I enjoy saying it. It helps to focus me and to ground me. But then, I’m a Christian,” she said.
DiNovo said she wanted to hear from Muslim, Jewish and Sikh members of the legislature on the future of prayer at Queen’s Park, and that she hoped the proposed committee would seek advice from religious leaders in Ontario.
“We’re much more than just Protestants and Catholics today,” said McGuinty to the Canadian Press. “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.”
McGuinty’s proposal to review the use of the Lord’s Prayer comes at the same time as the government proposes moving question period from mid-afternoon to 9:30 a.m. and ending night sittings in an effort to make MPPs’ jobs less taxing on their families.
Though he concedes that Ontario today isn’t exclusively Protestant and Catholic, Klees doesn’t believe diversity should put an end to tradition.
“To go forward on the basis that every time we want to be culturally inclusive that we have to throw something out that has been part of our culture over the years is in itself polarizing,” he said.
Though Protestant, Klees is author of a private member’s bill awaiting second reading which would create a day to honour Pope John Paul II on the provincial calendar.
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