Durham MP Jamil Jivani has joined forces with a group of Protestant pastors to ignite a national conversation on the challenges faced by Canadian Christians in the public square – just as Quebec’s premier is threatening to ban all prayer in public spaces.

On Dec. 3, Jivani launched an online petition, “Protect Christians in Canada,” which cites a rising tide of “government and corporate overreach” and “anti-Christian bigotry and discrimination” as cause for concern.

The Ontario Conservative MP released a video promoting the petition. Filmed in front of a Christmas tree, Jimani asks: “What good is a Christmas tree here in Parliament when you have a federal government that will not lift a finger to protect Christians from governments and corporations abusing their power?”

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On Dec. 6, just before jetting off to Paris for the re-opening of famed Notre Dame Cathedral where he hobnobbed with Elon Musk and Donald Trump, Quebec Premier Francois Legault said he does not want Quebecers’ witnessing prayer in parks and elsewhere.

"Seeing people on their knees in the streets, praying, I think we have to ask ourselves the question. I don't think it's something we should see," Legault said. He added it’s enough for believers to have churches and other places of worship where they can go to pray. 

The premier vowed that when legislation banning public prayer is pushed through Quebec’s National Assembly, he will ensure it is protected by the nothwithstanding clause of the Charter of Rights so it cannot be overridden by the courts. His threat was prompted by publicity surrounding a school where Muslim teachers are said to have permitted students to pray in class.

"There are teachers who are bringing Islamist religious concepts into Quebec schools," Legault said. "I will definitely not tolerate that. We don't want that in Quebec."

Jivani’s petition, and the response it has attracted, make clear it’s not only Muslims who fear government intrusion on religious rights.

Jöel St. John is a pastor at Liberty Church Bowmanville, one of the six churches in the Durham riding that posed a simple question to Jivani: “What would it look like to actually do something?”

St. John told The Catholic Register that the catalyst were questions he and other pastors were being asked by their congregants. Focused primarily on the struggles faced by parents of school-aged children, those questions also touched on conscience rights in the workplace.

“I was being asked, ‘What steps should we take? What should we do? Should we pull our kids out of school?,’” said St. John.

The resulting petition is described as a “grassroots initiative” and is “not about asking anybody to live according to Christian values, but whether Christians have the freedom to live according to their own traditions and practice their faith.”

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The small group hopes the petition will gain momentum among the wider Christian community.

“Catholics and Christians of all traditions can get on board with this. As Christians in Canada, we're often divided by doctrine. I think this is an opportunity to get on the same page. We can disagree about doctrine, but we can agree that we should have the freedom to practice the traditions that we have,” said St. John.

St. John and the authors of the petition are highly aware of the diversity present among Canadian Christians.

“As a young black pastor, there's a lot of things that I have my own perspective on, but I've realized that as Christians, we often get on the wrong train. We take secondary and tertiary issues and make them primary issues, and I want us to say, let's make this the primary issue.”

Jivani and the petition garnered an unexpected boost from JD Vance, U.S. Vice President elect, after Canadian journalist Max Fawcett mocked the initiative in a Dec. 5 post on X.

Fawcett, columnist with climate-change focused publication Canada’s National Observer wrote, “So much of contemporary conservatism revolves around cultivating and validating a sense of victimhood in groups that aren't actually victims.” 

Vance, baptized Catholic in 2019, countered, “Canada has seen a number of church burnings in recent years thanks to anti-Christian bigotry. All over the world, Christians are the most persecuted religious group. Jamil is speaking the truth. Shame on journalists who refuse to see what's obvious.”

St. John says that the goal is not to make a political point, claim victim status or carve out new legal protections, but simply to assert the rights already enshrined by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“If you are a Christian and you are Canadian, you already have rights. They're just not being respected. We're not looking for something new. We just want to respect, defend and protect what we already have.”

“This is not trying to push a particular political agenda. It's also not trying to push a particular persuasion of Christianity. This is not about liberal Christianity or conservative Christianity, it's about Christians being free from government or corporate overreach.”

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St. John says the hope is that “we give language to what people are already feeling.”

Jivani says that he will be speaking to the petition and attendant issues at an Ottawa event in February, by which point there may be considerably more to discuss if Premier Francois Legault proceeds with legislating a public prayer ban.