When assessing the latest controversy over prayer in schools that is taking place in the Peel District School Board, it is important to remember that the issue of religious accommodations has a long, acrimonious history in Canada.

Each incident is presented as a life-and-death struggle over the fabric of Canadian identity. On one hand there is typically a minority group that requests an accommodation it believes is required to freely practice its faith. But these demands are almost always met by a chorus of opposition that demands our institutions stay secular.

But make no mistake, in Canada, secular means maintaining the traditions of the Christian majority.

When seeking to understand the current anti-Muslim paranoia, it is instructional to look at how public ire used to be directed at Sikhs. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Sikhs were the minority group du jour in the public spotlight. For example, in 1988, John Morris, a federal candidate from the seemingly progressive NDP, went on television and stated that his Sikh opponent, Liberal Harbajhan Pandori, was unfit to become a member of Parliament because “his culture is really aside from much of the culture of Canada.”

In the early 1990s, many Canadians were in an uproar over the decision to allow Sikh cadet, Baltej Dhillon Singh to wear a turban as part of his RCMP uniform. More than 200,000 people signed a petition seeking to overturn the decision. And there were clear racist undertones to the opposition. Thousands of pins were sold that showed a white man, surrounded by menacing caricatures of a Sikh, an Asian, and a black man, along with the caption “Who is the minority in Canada?”

Similarly, a Calgary man, Herman Bittner started selling calendars that parodied a Sikh in an RCMP uniform with the caption “Is this Canadian, or does this make you Sikh?” Bittner clearly did not see this as racist, stating in an interview, “Am I really a racist, or am I standing up and trying to save something that you know can be lost forever?”

The same sentiment was expressed when teacher Harbhajan Singh Pandori was fired from the Peel Board of Education for refusing to give up his kirpan, a small ceremonial dagger that is considered mandatory to carry in the Sikh faith. After the Ontario Human Rights Commission ruled that Sikhs could, under certain restrictions, wear kirpans at schools, public outcry ensued. A petition was signed by 6,000 people, one of whom commented “I do believe that when you come to another country, try to go with our tradition.”

And that asks the question: What exactly is “our tradition?” It is often presented as secular, but this is a façade. For if you look closely, our tradition in Canada is a history of accommodations to Christians, especially when it comes to our schools.

That is why up until the late 1980s and early 1990s, supposedly public schools in Ontario still had mandatory Bible study and began each day with the Lord’s Prayer. And it is important to remember that school boards fought hard to keep these “traditions,” and only abandoned them when forced to by the Ontario Court of Appeal.

Even today, religious accommodations for Christians persist. It is why schools are closed on Sundays, Good Friday, Easter Monday, and Christmas, but not Vaisakhi, Eid or Diwali. And of course, it is also why the only religious schools to receive public funding in Ontario are Catholic.

If the true intent is for our schools to be secular, we would move toward one publicly funded system in which all the major religious holidays of our students are recognized and celebrated.

This is what was done in New York City in 2015, where for the first time, all schools were closed for both Eid and Yom Kippur. NYC Public Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña said at the time, “We are committed to having a school calendar that reflects and honours the extraordinary diversity of our students … This new addition will also enable a teachable moment in the classroom for our students to learn about religious tolerance and the societal contributions of various cultures”.

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In a country as supposedly committed to diversity and pluralism as Canada, it should be easy for us to do the same. But if we are not willing to do this, we should at least be honest about why. Let’s stop pretending that we want secularism, when really what is desired is to maintain the religious accommodations of the Christian majority, at the expense of everyone else.