Outside Activities

• Author: Alan Borovoy
• Pages: 91-106

• 91 •

chapter six

Outside Activities

At the Labour Committee, it was always permissible for staff

members like me to become involved in outside activities. My Western

counterpart, David Orlikow, for example, simultaneously served as an

MP for the riding of Winnipeg North. And frequently I sat on concilia-

tion and arbitration boards as a union nominee. The constraint I always

observed was that such activities should create no conf‌lict either with

the objectives of — or the time commitment required by — the Labour

Committee.

One such outside activity began before I started with the Labour

Committee. In February 1959, the CJC hired me, on a part-time basis,

to work for the elimination of the religious education program that was

then mandated in the public schools of Ontario.

First introduced by the George Drew Conservative government in

1944, this Ontario law required two half-hour periods a week of Protest-

ant Christian instruction. (Since Confederation, the Roman Catholics

have been entitled to their own schools, publicly f‌inanced.) This pro-

gram should not be confused with the traditional religious exercises

featured in the public schools (the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer and

selected Bible readings without comment).

The program at issue here involved full-scale instruction (it’s fair

to call it, indoctrination). Note that, in one of the early outlines for the

course, there appeared the following admonition: “Jesus Christ is more

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“at the barricades”

than a hero to be admired; He is the Revelation of God in history.”1 Un-

doubtedly, such statements represent the sacred beliefs of many people.

Early on, however, I argued that the faith of some (or even, most) should

not be taught as fact for all. Controversial doctrines of faith, such as the

divinity of Jesus, are simply not incontrovertible matters of fact, such

as 2 + 2 = 4 and c-a-t spells cat. Public tax-supported schools have no

business teaching them as though they were all philosophically and

pedagogically of the same vintage. An exacerbating factor in this regard

is that generally youngsters of the designated ages, regardless of their

faith, are required to attend the public schools. The notion of compul-

sory indoctrination in a faith alien to one’s home and family is repug-

nant to democratic principles.

Invariably, someone would ask: What’s wrong with learning about

any of the great religions in our society? And just as invariably, I would

reply, “Nothing.” Indeed, as I would often add, it’s not possible to under-

stand much of history or literature without an adequate knowledge of

certain religious perspectives. But this religious education program was

not designed to promote knowledge about Protestant Christianity or

any other religious ideology. It was designed to promote a belief in a

particular religious ideology, namely Protestant Christianity. And that

was always objectionable.

If the philosophical arguments were not enough, there were always

the off‌icial guidebooks and even the behaviour of some of the off‌icial

lecturers. In describing the circumstances surrounding the crucif‌ixion,

one of the guidebooks made an insensitive reference to “these Jewish

rulers bent on murder.” In a suburban Toronto classroom, a Protestant

minister (authorized as a teacher of religion) asked the members of an

elementary school class to indicate whether they had been to Sunday

School on the previous Sunday. Everyone, except one Jewish boy, indi-

cated that they had indeed attended Sunday School. With that lone boy

standing by himself, the minister proceeded to lecture the class on the

importance of going to Sunday School.

Whenever Jewish or other minority group members complained

about this program, they would be reminded that they could always

exempt their kids from the classes. That right, of course, was a matter

of law. But to f‌launt the right of exemption at those people simply com-

pounded the insensitivity that enveloped the whole process. After all,