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PORT HOOD, N.S. — A rural Cape Breton museum might not be able to hire a student this summer because it won’t sign a declaration saying it supports abortion and LGBTQ rights.

Susan Mallette, president of the Chestico Museum and Heritage Society in Port Hood, said her group isn’t affiliated with any religious organization, and isn’t trying to make a moral statement about reproductive or sexual freedoms. However, she said the museum, which offers a glimpse of life in the seaside hamlet 150 years ago, is located in “a very Catholic community” and most members she’s spoken to don’t think the Canada Summer Jobs application form is an appropriate place for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to ask questions about her organization’s values and beliefs.

“It was just the fact that the federal government has no rights asking such a question on an application to hire a summer student,” said Mallette, 66, who has been involved with the Chestico Museum and Heritage Society for more than 20 years.

“I’m dating myself, but another Trudeau, back in the time, said there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation — that’s private, you don’t put people to sit down and discuss this type of thing. It’s inappropriate.”

The federal government added the attestation to the Canada Summer Jobs application this year after receiving complaints last summer about organizations that refused to hire gay students, or that asked young workers to hand out graphic anti-abortion pamphlets.

The application now requires charitable organizations requesting grants to check off a box confirming they “respect individual human rights in Canada, including the values underlying the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as other rights.”

It states those other rights include “reproductive rights, and the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of sex, religion, race, national or ethnic origin, colour, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression.”

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Mallette said she deliberately left the box unchecked when she filed the application earlier this year. A Service Canada representative later phoned to ask if it was oversight, and Mallette confirmed the membership wanted the application to remain that way.

Mallette said while their application hasn’t been formally denied, the museum usually receives two grants — one federal and one provincial — to hire a pair of summer students. The provincial application has already been approved but there’s been no word from the federal government, she said, adding that she’s tried unsuccessfully to speak to Cape Breton-Canso MP Rodger Cuzner about the matter.

“We’ll see what happens. Maybe we could have just closed our eyes and ticked the box,” she said. “I think where I stand personally is that once you start that and use that as a means to get information, where’s the government going to stop? Is it going to be on all applications? What else are they going to ask?”

In the meantime, Mallette said the Chestico Museum really just wants to hire a student to help out around the old two-room schoolhouse where they display their archives and artifacts and operate a gift shop.

And she said a person’s view on abortion, sexual preference, or gender identity wouldn’t influence who they hire.

“We’re not closed-minded — we’re open to every type of student because you learn something from them, as well as teaching them certain things at the museum like cataloguing and putting on concerts or fundraising,” she said. “So they learn something, and we learn something from them. Every student is different, and we value every one of them.”

news@cbpost.com