Late last year, the eligibility requirements were altered. The program will no longer fund summer student positions with organizations having a core mandate that is focused on removing or actively undermining existing women’s reproductive rights or other recognized rights. There is no indication that advocacy groups focused on other issues are ineligible for funding.

According to the program website, “core mandate” refers only to the primary activities undertaken by the organization and not its beliefs, values or peripheral activities. Faith-based organizations broadly opposed to, for example, abortion or same-sex marriage are still eligible to apply for grants to hire summer students. No individual is required to make a declaration about personal values or beliefs. Supervisors and student employees who hold pro-life or anti-gay opinions will be free to hold and to continue to express them. By the new criteria, only a handful of previously successful applicants, such as the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, which has a singular focus to re-enact criminal abortion laws in Canada, will become ineligible.

Applicant organizations must now also warrant that they will not use hiring practices that are contrary to the human rights codes enforced across the country, such as refusing to hire or provide services to certain types of people. (Apparently, some summer camps refused to hire applicants who identified as LGBTQ+.) Religious preferences in hiring can only be exercised in narrow circumstances, which are unlikely to be present for many summer positions. For example, case law has established that if the group served is comprised mainly of non-adherents, religious affiliation cannot be a factor in hiring.

Likewise, discrimination in service provision is also highly constrained. All employers and service providers, including faith-based organizations, are already bound by these codes to non-discriminatory hiring and service provision, so this requirement does not impose new obligations.

The Charter-protected rights to religious and expressive freedom are, for the most part, negative rights. The government can neither compel nor impede expression of religious belief or religious practice unless such action can be justified in a free and democratic society. As the new eligibility criteria for the Canada Summer Jobs program neither compels nor impedes expression or religious practices, a Charter challenge is bound to fail. The jurisprudence is also clear that the Charter does not require governments to support expressive or religious rights. Governments can, unbound by the Charter, choose the advocacy projects it wishes to support.