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Simply having a religious faith ought not to be itself something May felt a need to self-edit

In this, I am a pretty typical Canadian. Pew Research crunched the numbers on religious faith in Canada just a few months ago.

Canada is, obviously, less observant than it once was. But more than half of Canadians still say that religious faith is still at least somewhat important in their lives, and more than half the country identifies as Christian (in some capacity). It’s true that the religiously unaffiliated are a growing bloc — but still a clear minority. Simply having a religious faith, particularly the majority one, ought not to be itself something May felt a need to self-edit.

It’s fine that Singh is Sikh. It’s fine that May and Scheer (and Justin Trudeau!) are Christian. It ought to be possible to debate the pressing social issues of the day, or even, for that matter, the not-so pressing social issues of the day, without needing to resort to either suspicion of someone else’s religious faith or apologize for one’s own.

I understand that some voters would probably place a higher emphasis on a candidate’s religious faith, or lack thereof, than I would. But I have to imagine that there are a great many Canadians who feel exactly as I do. The religious views of all of the party leaders in the upcoming election is of absolutely zero interest to me. I could not care less.

But I admit that I am certainly interested in what the discussions about religion reveal about the leaders. As I noted weeks ago, Scheer needs to come up with a better answer to abortion and gay marriage than simply stating he won’t reopen them.

Similarly, while May’s Christian faith would never make me more or less likely to vote for her, the fact that she felt moved to apologize for discussing her faith absolutely sends up red flags.

If she does not see the absurdity in insisting that the Green party is too open and tolerant a place for her to express, in pretty mild and unobjectionable terms, that she has faith in the Christian Saviour, I’m not really sure that says anything good about either her, the party she leads or the notions of tolerance and inclusivity as embraced by Canada’s political left.

• Twitter: mattgurney