Latest news with #UniversityofOttawa
11 hours ago
- Health
Canadians' health data at risk of being handed over to U.S. authorities, experts warn
Canadians' electronic health records need more protections to prevent foreign entities from accessing patient data, according to commentary in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Canadian privacy law is badly outdated, said Michael Geist, law professor and Canada Research Chair in internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa and co-author of the commentary (new window) . "We're now talking about decades since the last major change." Geist says electronic medical records systems from clinics and hospitals — containing patients' personal health information — are often controlled by U.S. companies. The data is encrypted and primarily stored on cloud servers in Canada, but because those are owned by American companies, they are subject to American laws. Enlarge image (new window) Michael Geist is a law professor at the University of Ottawa and Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law. Photo: Submitted by Michael Geist For example, Geist points out, the U.S. passed the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data (CLOUD) Act (new window) in 2018, which can compel companies to disclose customer information for criminal investigations, even if it's stored outside the United States. The law allows for bilateral agreements with the U.S. and other countries. Canada and the U.S. began negotiations (new window) in 2022. The companies have Canadian laws that may say they've got to provide appropriate protections for that data, Geist said. But they may have U.S. law that could compel them to disclose that information. Canada's laws, Geist says, have not yet found a way to respond to that. How health data could be used The CMAJ commentary says serious privacy, security, and economic risks arise when companies in other countries hold and use Canadian data. Among them, the authors point to the potential use of that information for law enforcement surveillance, or by private companies seeking to use the data to make money. Health data is deeply personal, and ongoing Canada-U.S. political tensions may cause some to be even warier about where and how their information is stored and used, says Lorian Hardcastle, assistant professor in the law faculty and Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary. There is a compelling argument to be made to say, 'Well, you know, we just need to have this information stored in Canada and not have those dealings with American companies,' said Hardcastle. Aside from the CLOUD Act, another concern Geist lays out is the potential for foreign companies to profit off of Canadians' health data. With the growth of AI, Geist says that data has become increasingly valuable — a tremendous pool of information that could potentially be used to generate AI algorithms. (The cloud companies say their customers own and control their own data.) We should be the ones to benefit from that, Geist said. We should be the ones who are entitled to appropriate privacy protections. Enlarge image (new window) Dr. Sheryl Spithoff, with the family and community medicine department at the University of Toronto, says patient data needs additional protections. Photo: (Turgut Yeter/CBC) Dr. Sheryl Spithoff, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, says these risks highlight how Canada's privacy laws fall short. This data is patient data. It belongs to patients. That should be used for reasons that are in their interests, that bring them benefit, that don't cause harm. Tech companies respond The CMAJ commentary says three U.S. cloud companies dominate: Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services. Google told CBC News that customer data belongs to our customers, not to Google Cloud. It says, like many tech companies, it gets requests from governments and courts to disclose customer information, usually as part of criminal investigations. The company says it follows a transparent, fair, and thorough process to respond. It didn't comment specifically about Canadian health data. Google provides a response on a case-by-case basis, taking into account different circumstances and informed by legal requirements, customer agreements, and privacy policies, it said. We are committed to protecting privacy while also complying with applicable laws. Microsoft said that in the second half of 2022, of the nearly 5,000 demands for consumer data it received from U.S. law enforcement, 53 warrants sought content stored outside of the U.S. Microsoft's compliance team reviews government demands for customer data to ensure the requests are valid, rejects those that are not valid, and only provides the data specified in the legal order. Amazon said it does not disclose customer information in response to government demands unless we're required to do so to comply with a legally valid and binding order. In a statement, a spokesperson for Amazon Web Services wrote there have been no data requests to AWS that resulted in disclosure to the U.S. government of enterprise or government content data stored outside the U.S. since we started reporting the statistic. Limits to Canada's privacy laws Privacy experts say the failure of Canada's privacy laws to keep pace with changing technology has put the country's data sovereignty at risk. Geist says strengthening provincial laws and the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, known as PIPEDA, could help create a guardrail against potential U.S. data requests reaching into Canada. In his commentary, Geist calls for stronger penalties for unauthorized disclosure of personal information without consent and guidance that foreign court orders related to Canadian data are unenforceable in Canada. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada says PIPEDA applies when transferring data across the border, but Geist says the law itself isn't robust enough. Geist also calls for the country to develop Canadian cloud servers for health data, and to ensure that data is hosted on Canadian soil. The wealth of health information generated by the health-care system should stay in Canada and benefit Canadians, Geist says. He and his co-authors see the potential for health AI algorithms to be developed in Canada by Canadian companies, with robust safeguards, to support health-care decisions based on data representative of Canada's population. Alison Northcott (new window) · CBC News · National Reporter Alison Northcott is a national reporter for CBC News in Montreal, covering health, business and politics. Born in Winnipeg, she is a graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University and has over 15 years experience in journalism. With files from Christine Birak and Melanie Glanz
WebMD
3 days ago
- Health
- WebMD
Why BMI Still Won't Die
July 29, 2025 — The body mass index was born in judgment. Its creator, the 19th-century Belgian astronomer and statistician Adolphe Quetelet, believed that greatness arose from averageness. The closer an individual was to the average size and shape of their time and place, the closer they were to perfection. Any sports fan instantly sees the flaw in this logic: How boring would basketball be if the average NBA player was 5-foot-9 instead of 6-foot-7? But it gets worse: Quetelet asserted that the further someone deviated from the population average, the more flawed they were. First, however, he had to figure out what 'average' was. Starting with a database of measurements from Scottish soldiers, Quetelet developed a formula of weight (in kilograms) divided by height (in meters) squared. More than a century later, in 1972, legendary nutrition scientist Ancel Keys coined a new name for Quetelet's formula: body mass index, or BMI. What was conceived in judgment remains quite judge-y. BMI continues to serve as a demarcation between a 'normal' or 'healthy' body weight (a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9) and the deviance of being 'overweight' (a BMI of 25 to 29.9) or 'obese' (a BMI of 30 or more). Today, there's nothing 'normal' about a sub-25 BMI. Not when the average American adult has a BMI of 30 — just a couple of sandwiches past 'overweight' —and the CDC estimates that 42% of U.S. adults have obesity. That's why, over the past decade, a growing number of doctors and scientists have argued that BMI as a health metric is past its sell-by date. But before we talk about what's wrong with BMI and what health professionals can use instead, we need to look at how it became so ubiquitous and what it tells us — and doesn't. What BMI Can and Can't Tell Us 'The advantage of BMI,' said obesity specialist Yoni Freedhoff, MD, is that 'it's easily calculable.' Just run your height and weight through a BMI calculator. Freedhoff, an associate professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa and medical director of the Bariatric Medical Institute, also acknowledges that 'BMI has a basis in statistical risk.' We've known for a long time that a person with obesity has a higher risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we learned that someone with a BMI over 30 was statistically more likely to develop a severe or even fatal illness. But when we look at overall risk of dying early from any cause, the link to excess body weight doesn't line up with expectations. A 2023 study found that, among U.S. adults, the likelihood of early death was 5%-7% lower among people with a BMI in the 'overweight' range, compared to those with a BMI between 22.5 and 24.9. The results varied significantly for older vs. younger groups. For those 65 and older, the chance of early death was about the same across BMIs from 22.5 to 34.9 — from the high end of 'healthy' to the low end of 'obese.' But for participants younger than 65, the lowest death rates were more constrained: from 22.5 to 27.4. 'BMI alone does not capture metabolic risk well,' said study author Aayush Visaria, MD, an instructor of medicine and clinical researcher at Rutgers University. That's because it can't distinguish between fat mass and lean tissue (muscle, bone, water), much less account for how a person's fat is distributed. That's important, Visaria said, because health professionals may overlook potential health risks in a patient who has a 'normal' BMI but poor body composition — the ratio of fat to muscle. The combination isn't as rare as it sounds. Research shows that many people with a 'healthy' BMI have excess body fat, defined as 25% or more in men and 35% or more in women. So what are the alternatives to using BMI to assess a patient's health risks? A New Paradigm for Diagnosing Obesity 'BMI by itself doesn't do anything for me,' said Fatima Cody Stanford, MD, MPH, an obesity medicine specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital and an associate professor of medicine and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. 'I call it street-corner medicine. You're looking at the person like you're sitting on the street corner and you're like, 'That person has this issue.'' That's the message of a recent report that Stanford developed along with dozens of obesity experts from across the globe. The report puts obesity on a continuum. Where a person lands depends on how much body fat they have and how it affects their health and abilities. Toward the healthier end, you'd have someone whose BMI puts them in the overweight or obesity range but who has no weight-related health problems. They also wouldn't have excess fat mass, which you can indirectly measure with a tape measure. If their waist circumference, measured at the belly button, is less than 35 inches (for a woman) or 40 inches (for a man), you can assume they have a healthy body composition. A lot of athletes and other highly active people would fit into this category. At the other end of the continuum is clinical obesity: a chronic illness caused by excess body fat. Clinical obesity affects the person's health and/or quality of life at a functional level. They might have sleep apnea or joint pain; high blood pressure or heart problems; or high blood sugar or low HDL cholesterol. Or it might be some combination. Whatever the symptoms are, clinical obesity has a significant effect on the patient's present and future health status. Somewhere in between is preclinical obesity. In this category, a person has objectively high body fat (whether measured directly with DEXA or indirectly via waist circumference) but doesn't yet have obesity-related complications. Those complications are by no means exclusive to people with obesity. In a recent study, Stanford and her co-authors found that 61% of participants with a BMI of 30 or higher had at least one obesity-related complication — typically muscle or joint pain, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. But so did 50% of participants with a 'normal' BMI. 'I don't know anything about [a patient] until I do a full assessment,' Stanford said. In fact, she won't see a new patient until she has access to a full metabolic workup, including fasting blood lipids and glucose, as well as their height and weight measurements. 'I don't even go over BMI with patients until it gets very severe, which is that 40-plus group.' What No Measurement Can Tell Us Someone with such a high BMI is unlikely to be surprised by hearing it. 'People who have excess weight know they have excess weight,' Freedhoff said. 'The doctors know. Everybody knows.' That's why Freedhoff doesn't think it matters if we replace or combine BMI with any other metrics. 'None of those numbers tell you if the individual in front of you has health consequences of their excess adiposity,' he said. Even more important, he added, is whether they themselves have any concerns about their weight. 'And if the answer to all those questions is no' — they have no medical conditions that require treatment, and they don't think their weight affects their quality of life — 'they're good to go. Just monitor, like we would with any other medical condition.' Why BMI Won't Go Away So if BMI doesn't offer uniquely valuable information, why is it still so ubiquitous? Why is it still used to assess who is or isn't at risk for diabetes or heart disease? Why is BMI the basis for prescribing in-demand weight loss medicines or for approving a range of procedures from joint replacements to organ transplants? 'It all comes down to what's the easiest, best number to use?' Freedhoff said. 'I'm not saying it's BMI, but I'm not saying it isn't.' If excess body fat is what medical providers should be monitoring, he added, 'BMI is pretty darned good' at detecting it. That's supported by a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It showed that an overwhelming majority of participants with a BMI above the obesity threshold do, in fact, have excess body fat, as measured by DEXA. Still, Freedhoff said, no number has perfect prognostic value. That applies to any tool doctors use for any chronic condition. The difference with BMI is that it comes with the onus of personal responsibility. Whereas a doctor would never suggest that a patient's cardiac arrhythmia is a choice, that implication is almost always part of the conversation when it comes to obesity. 'I marvel at how challenging it seems to be for society as a whole, including health care, to consider obesity to be just another chronic medical condition that the person did not choose, that does not always guarantee problems, that does respond to treatment, and that should be free from blame,' Freedhoff said.
Los Angeles Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Trump's religious rhetoric clashes with Canada's secular politics
MONTREAL — Throughout his new term, starting with his inaugural address, President Trump has said he was 'saved by God' to make America great again. In Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney rarely evokes religion in public; his victory speech in April never used the word God. 'Canada forever. Vive le Canada,' he ended. As Canada and the U.S. now skirmish over Trump's tariff threats and occasional bullying, the leaders' rhetoric reflects a striking difference between their nations. Religion plays a far more subdued role in the public sphere in Canada than in its southern neighbor. Trump posed in front of a vandalized Episcopal parish house gripping a Bible. He invites pastors to the Oval Office to pray with him. His ally, House Speaker Mike Johnson, says the best way to understand his own world view is to read the Bible. Such high-level religion-themed displays would be unlikely and almost certainly unpopular in Canada, where Carney — like his recent predecessors — generally avoids public discussion of his faith. (He is a Catholic who supports abortion rights.) There are broader differences as well. The rate of regular church attendance in Canada is far lower than in the U.S. Evangelical Christians have nowhere near the political clout in Canada that they have south of the border. There is no major campaign in Canada to post the Ten Commandments in public schools or to enact sweeping abortion bans. Kevin Kee, a professor and former dean at the University of Ottawa, has written about the contrasting religious landscapes of the U.S. and Canada, exploring the rise of American evangelist Billy Graham to become a confidant of numerous U.S. presidents. Christianity, Kee said, has not permeated modern Canadian politics to that extent. 'We have a political leadership that keeps its religion quiet,' Kee said. 'To make that kind of declaration in Canada is to create an us/them situation. There's no easy way to keep everybody happy, so people keep it quiet.' The mostly French-speaking province of Quebec provides a distinctive example of Canada's tilt toward secularism. The Catholic Church was Quebec's dominant force through most of its history, with sweeping influence over schools, health care and politics. That changed dramatically in the so-called Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, when the provincial government took control of education and health care as part of a broader campaign to reduce the church's power. The rate of regular church attendance among Quebec's Catholics plummeted from one of the highest in Canada to the one of the lowest. Among religiously devout Canadians, in Quebec and other provinces, some are candid about feeling marginalized in a largely secular country. 'I feel isolated because our traditional Christian views are seen as old-fashioned or not moving with the times,' said Mégane Arès-Dubé, 22, after she and her husband attended a service at a conservative Reformed Baptist church in Saint Jerome, about 30 miles north of Montreal. 'Contrary to the U.S., where Christians are more represented in elected officials, Christians are really not represented in Canada,' she added. 'I pray that Canada wakes up.' The church's senior pastor, Pascal Denault, has mixed feelings about the Quiet Revolution's legacy. 'For many aspects of it, that was good,' he said. 'Before that, it was mainly the Catholic clergy that controlled many things in the province, so we didn't have religious freedom.' Nonetheless, Denault wishes for a more positive public view of religion in Canada. 'Sometimes, secularism becomes a religion in itself, and it wants to shut up any religious speech in the public sphere,' he said. 'What we hope for is that the government will recognize that religion is not an enemy to fight, but it's more a positive force to encourage.' Denault recently hosted a podcast episode focusing on Trump; he later shared some thoughts about the president. 'We tend to think that Trump is more using Christianity as a tool for his influence, rather than being a genuine Christian,' he said. 'But Christians are, I think, appreciative of some of his stances on different things.' Trump's religion-related tactics — such as posing with the Bible in his hands — wouldn't go over well with Canadians, Denault said. 'They'd see that as something wrongful. The public servant should not identify with a specific religion,' Denault said. 'I don't think most Canadians would vote for that type of politician.' In the Montreal neighborhood of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, the skyline is dotted with crosses atop steeples, but many of those churches are unused or repurposed. For decades, factory and port workers worshipped at Saint-Mathias-Apotre Church. Today it's a restaurant that serves affordable meals daily for more than 600 residents. The manager of Le Chic Resto Pop, Marc-Andre Simard, grew up Catholic and now, like many of his staff, identifies as religiously unaffiliated. But he still tries to honor some core values of Catholicism at the nonprofit restaurant, which retains the church's original wooden doors and even its confessional booths. 'There's still space to be together, to have some sort of communion, but it's around food, not around faith.' Simard said during a lunch break, sitting near what used to be the altar of the former church. Simard says the extent to which the Catholic Church controlled so much of public life in Quebec should serve as a cautionary tale for the U.S. 'We went through what the United States are going through right now,' he said. Elsewhere in Montreal, a building that once housed a Catholic convent now often accommodates meetings of the Quebec Humanist Association. The group's co-founder, Michel Virard, said French Canadians 'know firsthand what it was to have a clergy nosing in their affairs.' Now, Virard says, 'There is no 'excluding religious voice' in Canada, merely attempts at excluding clergy from manipulating the state power levers and using taxpayers' money to promote a particular religious viewpoint.' Why are Canada and the U.S., two neighbors which share so many cultural traditions and priorities, so different regarding religion's role in public life? According to academics who have pondered that question, their history provides some answers. The United States, at independence from Britain, chose not to have a dominant, federally established church. In Canada, meanwhile, the Catholic Church was dominant in Quebec, and the Church of England — eventually named the Anglican Church of Canada — was powerful elsewhere. Professor Darren Dochuk, a Canadian who teaches history at University of Notre Dame in Indiana, says the 'disestablishment' of religion in the U.S. 'made religious life all the more dynamic.' 'This is a country in which free faith communities have been allowed to compete in the marketplace for their share,' he said. 'In the 20th century, you had a plethora of religious groups across the spectrum who all competed voraciously for access to power,' he said. 'More recently, the evangelicals are really dominating that. … Religious conservatives are imposing their will on Washington.' There's been no equivalent faith-based surge in Canada, said Dochuk, suggesting that Canada's secularization produced 'precipitous decline in the power of religion as a major operator in politics.' Carmen Celestini, professor of religious studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, said that even when Canadian politicians do opt for faith-based outreach, they often take a multicultural approach — for example, visiting Sikh, Hindu and Jewish houses of worship, as well as Christian churches. Trump's talk about Canada becoming the 51st state fueled a greater sense of national unity among most Canadians, and undermined the relatively small portion of them who identify as Christian nationalists, Celestini said. 'Canada came together more as a nation, not sort of seeing differences with each other, but seeing each other as Canadians and being proud of our sovereignty and who we are as a nation,' she said. 'The concern that Canadians have, when we look at what's happening in America, is that we don't want that to happen here. ' Henao and Crary write for the Associated Press. Crary, who reported from New York, was the AP's Canada bureau chief from 1995-99.
San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Trump's religious rhetoric clashes with Canada's secular politics
MONTREAL (AP) — Throughout his new term, starting with his inaugural address, President Donald Trump has said he was 'saved by God' to make America great again. In Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney rarely evokes religion in public; his victory speech in April never used the word God. 'Canada forever. Vive le Canada,' he ended. As Canada and the U.S. now skirmish over Trump's tariff threats and occasional bullying, the leaders' rhetoric reflects a striking difference between their nations. Religion plays a far more subdued role in the public sphere in Canada than in its southern neighbor. Trump posed in front of a vandalized Episcopal parish house gripping a Bible. He invites pastors to the Oval Office to pray with him. His ally, House Speaker Mike Johnson, says the best way to understand his own world view is to read the Bible. Such high-level religion-themed displays would be unlikely and almost certainly unpopular in Canada, where Carney — like his recent predecessors — generally avoids public discussion of his faith. (He is a Catholic who supports abortion rights.) There are broader differences as well. The rate of regular church attendance in Canada is far lower than in the U.S. Evangelical Christians have nowhere near the political clout in Canada that they have south of the border. There is no major campaign in Canada to post the Ten Commandments in public schools or to enact sweeping abortion bans. Kevin Kee, a professor and former dean at the University of Ottawa, has written about the contrasting religious landscapes of the U.S. and Canada, exploring the rise of American evangelist Billy Graham to become a confidant of numerous U.S. presidents. Christianity, Kee said, has not permeated modern Canadian politics to that extent. 'We have a political leadership that keeps its religion quiet,' Kee said. 'To make that kind of declaration in Canada is to create an us/them situation. There's no easy way to keep everybody happy, so people keep it quiet.' A dramatic loss of Catholic power in Quebec The mostly French-speaking province of Quebec provides a distinctive example of Canada's tilt toward secularism. The Catholic Church was Quebec's dominant force through most of its history, with sweeping influence over schools, health care and politics. That changed dramatically in the so-called Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, when the provincial government took control of education and health care as part of a broader campaign to reduce the church's power. The rate of regular church attendance among Quebec's Catholics plummeted from one of the highest in Canada to the one of the lowest. Among religiously devout Canadians, in Quebec and other provinces, some are candid about feeling marginalized in a largely secular country. 'I feel isolated because our traditional Christian views are seen as old-fashioned or not moving with the times,' said Mégane Arès-Dubé, 22, after she and her husband attended a service at a conservative Reformed Baptist church in Saint Jerome, about 30 miles (nearly 50 kilometers) north of Montreal. 'Contrary to the U.S., where Christians are more represented in elected officials, Christians are really not represented in Canada,' she added. 'I pray that Canada wakes up.' The church's senior pastor, Pascal Denault, has mixed feelings about the Quiet Revolution's legacy. 'For many aspects of it, that was good,' he said. 'Before that, it was mainly the Catholic clergy that controlled many things in the province, so we didn't have religious freedom.' Nonetheless, Denault wishes for a more positive public view of religion in Canada. 'Sometimes, secularism becomes a religion in itself, and it wants to shut up any religious speech in the public sphere,' he said. 'What we hope for is that the government will recognize that religion is not an enemy to fight, but it's more a positive force to encourage.' Denault recently hosted a podcast episode focusing on Trump; he later shared some thoughts about the president. 'We tend to think that Trump is more using Christianity as a tool for his influence, rather than being a genuine Christian,' he said. 'But Christians are, I think, appreciative of some of his stances on different things.' Trump's religion-related tactics — such as posing with the Bible in his hands — wouldn't go over well with Canadians, Denault said. 'They'd see that as something wrongful. The public servant should not identify with a specific religion,' Denault said. 'I don't think most Canadians would vote for that type of politician.' Repurposed church buildings abound in Montreal In the Montreal neighborhood of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, the skyline is dotted with crosses atop steeples, but many of those churches are unused or repurposed. For decades, factory and port workers worshipped at Saint-Mathias-Apotre Church. Today it's a restaurant that serves affordable meals daily for more than 600 residents. The manager of Le Chic Resto Pop, Marc-Andre Simard, grew up Catholic and now, like many of his staff, identifies as religiously unaffiliated. But he still tries to honor some core values of Catholicism at the nonprofit restaurant, which retains the church's original wooden doors and even its confessional booths. 'There's still space to be together, to have some sort of communion, but it's around food, not around faith.' Simard said during a lunch break, sitting near what used to be the altar of the former church. Simard says the extent to which the Catholic Church controlled so much of public life in Quebec should serve as a cautionary tale for the U.S. 'We went through what the United States are going through right now,' he said. Elsewhere in Montreal, a building that once housed a Catholic convent now often accommodates meetings of the Quebec Humanist Association. The group's co-founder, Michel Virard, said French Canadians 'know firsthand what it was to have a clergy nosing in their affairs.' Now, Virard says, 'There is no 'excluding religious voice' in Canada, merely attempts at excluding clergy from manipulating the state power levers and using taxpayers' money to promote a particular religious viewpoint.' History reveals why role of religion is so different in U.S. and Canada Why are Canada and the U.S., two neighbors which share so many cultural traditions and priorities, so different regarding religion's role in public life? According to academics who have pondered that question, their history provides some answers. The United States, at independence from Britain, chose not to have a dominant, federally established church. In Canada, meanwhile, the Catholic Church was dominant in Quebec, and the Church of England — eventually named the Anglican Church of Canada — was powerful elsewhere. Professor Darren Dochuk, a Canadian who teaches history at University of Notre Dame in Indiana, says the 'disestablishment' of religion in the U.S. 'made religious life all the more dynamic.' 'This is a country in which free faith communities have been allowed to compete in the marketplace for their share,' he said. 'In the 20th century, you had a plethora of religious groups across the spectrum who all competed voraciously for access to power,' he said. 'More recently, the evangelicals are really dominating that. … Religious conservatives are imposing their will on Washington.' There's been no equivalent faith-based surge in Canada, said Dochuk, suggesting that Canada's secularization produced 'precipitous decline in the power of religion as a major operator in politics.' Carmen Celestini, professor of religious studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, said that even when Canadian politicians do opt for faith-based outreach, they often take a multicultural approach — for example, visiting Sikh, Hindu and Jewish houses of worship, as well as Christian churches. Trump's talk about Canada becoming the 51st state fueled a greater sense of national unity among most Canadians, and undermined the relatively small portion of them who identify as Christian nationalists, Celestini said. 'Canada came together more as a nation, not sort of seeing differences with each other, but seeing each other as Canadians and being proud of our sovereignty and who we are as a nation,' she said. 'The concern that Canadians have, when we look at what's happening in America, is that we don't want that to happen here. '
3 days ago
- Politics
Trump's religious rhetoric clashes with Canada's secular politics
MONTREAL -- Throughout his new term, starting with his inaugural address, President Donald Trump has said he was 'saved by God' to make America great again. In Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney rarely evokes religion in public; his victory speech in April never used the word God. 'Canada forever. Vive le Canada,' he ended. As Canada and the U.S. now skirmish over Trump's tariff threats and occasional bullying, the leaders' rhetoric reflects a striking difference between their nations. Religion plays a far more subdued role in the public sphere in Canada than in its southern neighbor. Trump posed in front of a vandalized Episcopal parish house gripping a Bible. He invites pastors to the Oval Office to pray with him. His ally, House Speaker Mike Johnson, says the best way to understand his own world view is to read the Bible. Such high-level religion-themed displays would be unlikely and almost certainly unpopular in Canada, where Carney — like his recent predecessors — generally avoids public discussion of his faith. (He is a Catholic who supports abortion rights.) There are broader differences as well. The rate of regular church attendance in Canada is far lower than in the U.S. Evangelical Christians have nowhere near the political clout in Canada that they have south of the border. There is no major campaign in Canada to post the Ten Commandments in public schools or to enact sweeping abortion bans. Kevin Kee, a professor and former dean at the University of Ottawa, has written about the contrasting religious landscapes of the U.S. and Canada, exploring the rise of American evangelist Billy Graham to become a confidant of numerous U.S. presidents. Christianity, Kee said, has not permeated modern Canadian politics to that extent. 'We have a political leadership that keeps its religion quiet,' Kee said. 'To make that kind of declaration in Canada is to create an us/them situation. There's no easy way to keep everybody happy, so people keep it quiet.' The mostly French-speaking province of Quebec provides a distinctive example of Canada's tilt toward secularism. The Catholic Church was Quebec's dominant force through most of its history, with sweeping influence over schools, health care and politics. That changed dramatically in the so-called Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, when the provincial government took control of education and health care as part of a broader campaign to reduce the church's power. The rate of regular church attendance among Quebec's Catholics plummeted from one of the highest in Canada to the one of the lowest. Among religiously devout Canadians, in Quebec and other provinces, some are candid about feeling marginalized in a largely secular country. 'I feel isolated because our traditional Christian views are seen as old-fashioned or not moving with the times,' said Mégane Arès-Dubé, 22, after she and her husband attended a service at a conservative Reformed Baptist church in Saint Jerome, about 30 miles (nearly 50 kilometers) north of Montreal. 'Contrary to the U.S., where Christians are more represented in elected officials, Christians are really not represented in Canada,' she added. 'I pray that Canada wakes up.' The church's senior pastor, Pascal Denault, has mixed feelings about the Quiet Revolution's legacy. 'For many aspects of it, that was good,' he said. 'Before that, it was mainly the Catholic clergy that controlled many things in the province, so we didn't have religious freedom.' Nonetheless, Denault wishes for a more positive public view of religion in Canada. 'Sometimes, secularism becomes a religion in itself, and it wants to shut up any religious speech in the public sphere,' he said. 'What we hope for is that the government will recognize that religion is not an enemy to fight, but it's more a positive force to encourage.' Denault recently hosted a podcast episode focusing on Trump; he later shared some thoughts about the president. 'We tend to think that Trump is more using Christianity as a tool for his influence, rather than being a genuine Christian,' he said. 'But Christians are, I think, appreciative of some of his stances on different things.' Trump's religion-related tactics — such as posing with the Bible in his hands — wouldn't go over well with Canadians, Denault said. 'They'd see that as something wrongful. The public servant should not identify with a specific religion,' Denault said. 'I don't think most Canadians would vote for that type of politician.' In the Montreal neighborhood of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, the skyline is dotted with crosses atop steeples, but many of those churches are unused or repurposed. For decades, factory and port workers worshipped at Saint-Mathias-Apotre Church. Today it's a restaurant that serves affordable meals daily for more than 600 residents. The manager of Le Chic Resto Pop, Marc-Andre Simard, grew up Catholic and now, like many of his staff, identifies as religiously unaffiliated. But he still tries to honor some core values of Catholicism at the nonprofit restaurant, which retains the church's original wooden doors and even its confessional booths. 'There's still space to be together, to have some sort of communion, but it's around food, not around faith.' Simard said during a lunch break, sitting near what used to be the altar of the former church. Simard says the extent to which the Catholic Church controlled so much of public life in Quebec should serve as a cautionary tale for the U.S. 'We went through what the United States are going through right now,' he said. Elsewhere in Montreal, a building that once housed a Catholic convent now often accommodates meetings of the Quebec Humanist Association. The group's co-founder, Michel Virard, said French Canadians 'know firsthand what it was to have a clergy nosing in their affairs.' Now, Virard says, 'There is no 'excluding religious voice' in Canada, merely attempts at excluding clergy from manipulating the state power levers and using taxpayers' money to promote a particular religious viewpoint.' Why are Canada and the U.S., two neighbors which share so many cultural traditions and priorities, so different regarding religion's role in public life? According to academics who have pondered that question, their history provides some answers. The United States, at independence from Britain, chose not to have a dominant, federally established church. In Canada, meanwhile, the Catholic Church was dominant in Quebec, and the Church of England — eventually named the Anglican Church of Canada — was powerful elsewhere. Professor Darren Dochuk, a Canadian who teaches history at University of Notre Dame in Indiana, says the 'disestablishment' of religion in the U.S. 'made religious life all the more dynamic.' 'This is a country in which free faith communities have been allowed to compete in the marketplace for their share,' he said. 'In the 20th century, you had a plethora of religious groups across the spectrum who all competed voraciously for access to power,' he said. 'More recently, the evangelicals are really dominating that. … Religious conservatives are imposing their will on Washington.' There's been no equivalent faith-based surge in Canada, said Dochuk, suggesting that Canada's secularization produced 'precipitous decline in the power of religion as a major operator in politics.' Carmen Celestini, professor of religious studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, said that even when Canadian politicians do opt for faith-based outreach, they often take a multicultural approach — for example, visiting Sikh, Hindu and Jewish houses of worship, as well as Christian churches. Trump's talk about Canada becoming the 51st state fueled a greater sense of national unity among most Canadians, and undermined the relatively small portion of them who identify as Christian nationalists, Celestini said. 'Canada came together more as a nation, not sort of seeing differences with each other, but seeing each other as Canadians and being proud of our sovereignty and who we are as a nation,' she said. 'The concern that Canadians have, when we look at what's happening in America, is that we don't want that to happen here. '
