Rather than defend an identity or particular religion, the Conservative Party is reaching out to followers of all religions, emphasizing in broad strokes the importance of freedom of religion in the creation of a Bureau.
Source/Credit: La Voix de la Russie | Radio
By Marc-Olivier Gagné | March 5, 2013
The Government of Canada, led by a conservative parliament majority, announced February 19, 2013 the official opening of the Office of freedom of religion. With a budget of five million dollars, the Bureau is responsible for "protecting religious minorities threatened and defend their rights, to fight against the spread of hatred and intolerance based on religion and to promote Canadian values of pluralism and tolerance. »The creation of this Bureau also fits in a broader attempt Harper government's make coexist conservatism and multiculturalism.
Surfing ambiguity
According to the principles of classical liberalism on which is founded the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the state can not promote values, but only the promotion of justice and law.
The State can not therefore make the promotion of a religion, religions or even of atheism. Gold, for some, the creation of Bureau of freedom of religion demonstrates that the Conservative Party of Canada considers that religious freedoms are more important than other freedoms. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the same government has abolished few years ago the organism Law and Democracy who had for purpose of making promotion in the world of all Rights and Freedoms, this which included the rights and religious freedoms. The Conservatives seem to play on the ambiguity between the protection and promotion of religious freedom, which allows them to flatter both liberals and conservatives. The Liberals there simply see the desire to protect the right to exercise freely a religion in the private. Religious conservatives will perceive the promotion of freedom of religion beyond other freedoms.
The union of religious plurality in a moderate conservatism
Playing skillfully on the ambiguity between the protection and promotion of religious freedom, the Conservative Party of Canada becomes a natural magnet for voters with a religious sensibility. This allows him to unite the conservative forces country's religious, rather than see them divide. Without agree on theological principles precise, several believers often have more affinities with the followers of another religion with the atheists or agnostics. The attachment to the idea of transcendence and to certain traditions general derived of the great religions (importance of the family, fidelity, respect towards God, etc.). Often gathers the believers of various denominations. Many believers are thus important to emphasize the policy, the positive influence of religion on their privacy and civil by valuing clear and assumed freedom of religion. For these electors, the framework Conservative thus understood seems more substantial and attracting that the framework classical liberal.
Good move politically
Therefore, one understands better the political strategy of Conservative government. The gesture can consolidate the electoral base of the party, without scaring more moderate, more woo religious minorities growing in cities and suburbs across Canada. Passing of an old conservatism identity to a new conservatism "openness" on rear-religious background, the Conservative government attracts gradually increasingly of voters from immigrant communities which, ago barely few years, voted systematically for the Liberal Party of Canada. This is therefore not a coincidence if the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, has announced the opening of the Bureau of freedom of religion in a Ahmadiyya Muslim community in suburban Toronto, megalopolis Canadian where more than 50% of residents are born outside the country.
Conservatism unique in the world
Canadian conservatism adapts therefore to the new reality of multiculturalism. Rather than defend an identity or particular religion, the Conservative Party is reaching out to followers of all religions, emphasizing in broad strokes the importance of freedom of religion in the creation of a Bureau. Critics are many, especially from the non-believers who fear they will not be protected as are the religious minorities, but it is clear that this is a scenario quite unique and interesting in world.
Read original post here: Canada, land of religious freedom
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