Faith gains a month

Growing support for coast-to-coast celebration of a Christian Heritage Month is welcome news though there are factors that might limit the urge to shout huzzahs from True North rooftops.

As the Register’s Quinton Amundson reports on catholicregister.org, the couple behind the initiative are currently pressing on to Ottawa to rouse federal parliamentary support for officially declaring that Canada’s founding principles of justice, compassion and service stem from Christian roots. 

Molly and Jay Banerjei have reason for hope and optimism given that the Senate is already considering a bill to give life to the declaration. The legislation’s sponsor, Sen. Leo Housakos, has his fingers crossed for possible December passage.

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That would bring Ottawa into the fold with Saskatchewan, which already marks December as Christian Heritage Month, and Alberta, which will begin doing so this year thanks to legislation passed last spring. Additionally, as Amundson reports, 60 municipalities across Canada have extended the recognition.

Manitoba and particularly Ontario are on the Banerjei provincial conversion list. There is already a Liberal private member’s bill with non-partisan support on the table at Queen’s Park if the couple can distract Premier Ford from swapping locker room insults with Donald Trump long enough to push it through the legislature.

For the level of progress they’ve made to date, they deserve the thanks and congratulations of Christians of all denominations and, indeed, Canadians of all faiths and no faith who are happy to acknowledge the reality of this country’s origins. Through the 19th and past the mid-point of the 20th century, Canada was demographically, spiritually, and to an extent legally, a Christian country. 

It was not until 1985, after all, that the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the federal Lord’s Day Act prohibiting Sunday shopping. The SCOC ruled the Act violated Sec. 2 of the newly minted Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Pre-Charter Courts had upheld it as consistent with the Canadian Bill of Rights. 

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It is, of course, defiance of simple reality, never mind a breach of decency and good citizenship, to describe Canada 2026 as a Christian country. But that doesn’t mean the historical good of the faith of Christ must be erased from the nation’s memory. It doesn’t mean we must all adopt Quebec’s bizarre Orwellian delusion that we have always been, and will forever be, secularists über alles. At a minimum, awareness is fairness.

Such awareness requires, however, an acceptance within the Christian civic mentality as much as in those of our fellow citizens who remain outside the Faith. Declaring Christian Heritage Month is well and good, but it means recognizing that we will be merely one on an almost interminable list of “officially sanctioned” celebrations throughout the year.

Never mind the Pride Months that festoon the land at the beginning of each summer. In September alone, Heritage Canada recognizes Gender Equality Week, British Home Child Day and, necessarily, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, which must not be confused with National Indigenous History Month and National Indigenous People’s Day in June. 

October? German Heritage Month, Canadian Islamic History Month, Latin American Heritage Month, Women’s History Month, National Seniors Day, International Day of the Girl Child, and Persons Day. 

November? Hindu Heritage Month, Lebanese Heritage Month, Veterans Week, Indigenous Veterans Day, Remembrance Day, National Child Day, Transgender Day of Remembrance, Holodor Memorial Day, and 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence.

That’s just a three-month selection from one department of the federal government and doesn’t begin to scratch the itch of, say, Health Canada and the myriad of non-governmental groups that have, properly and for their own laudable reasons, declared a month their own. 

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It is equally laudable to argue that Christians should be eager to have the cause of our Faith on a shared list with the innumerable other causes throughout the year, if only as a gesture of love of neighbour. Still, it would border on amnesia to fail to recognize that proclaiming Christian Heritage Month itself constitutes a profound historical – and spiritual – divergence from Canada’s original Christian character.

It’s fair enough to counter that such a divergence has already occurred, and it’s better to co-exist with reality than abide in nostalgia. But we must not let a nominal victory blind us to the implacable campaign being waged against the Faith by the very bureaucracies granting us “permission” to publicly declare Christ. Declaring Christian Heritage Month in December does not overcome the infamy, to take one example, of the Canadian Armed Forces banning its chaplains from openly praising God.  

A version of this article appeared in the September 13, 2026 issue of The Catholic Register with the headline "Faith gains a month"