Roger Varley has been in the news business almost 40 years with The Canadian Press/Broadcast News, Uxbnridge Times-Journal, Richmond Hill Liberal and Uxbridge Cosmos. Co-winner with two others of CCNA national feature writing award. In Scout movement over 30 years, almost 25 as a leader. Took Uxbridge youths to World Jamboree in Holland. Involved in community theatre for 20 years as actor, director, playwright, stage manager etc. Born in England, came to Canada at 16, lived most of life north and east of Toronto with a five-year period in B.C.
The silence is deafening
A news item appeared in the main stream media a couple of weeks ago that should have sparked outrage, but it disappeared from view with almost nary a peep from anyone.
The outrage should have been aimed at two aspects of the story, but it didn't and I really don't understand why.
The item concerned Public Safety Minister Vic Toews' announcement that, henceforth, only Christian chaplains would be allowed to provide counselling to prisoners in federal penitentiaries. The alleged reason for this is that it will save the federal government the fees paid to non-Christian ministers to visit prisoners of their faith. He said Christian chaplains will be able to provide counselling - spiritual or otherwise - to inmates of all faiths.
The government apparently spends about $6 million a year to pay for chaplaincy services in the prisons and - according to the CBC - Toews said he wasn't convinced part-time chaplains from other religions were an appropriate use of taxpayer money.
The first outrage is that the Christian community, generally, did not rise up and tell Toews that this is unacceptable. They certainly would have stormed the Bastille if it had been Christian chaplains cut out of the service.
One has to wonder just what Toews is/was thinking. How can a Christian minister provide spiritual guidance to a Muslim or a Jew or a Hindu? The Muslim sees Jesus as a lesser prophet than Mohammed, the Jew sees Jesus as a heretic and blasphemer and the Hindu has dozens of different gods. What comfort or guidance could they receive from someone who believes the inmate is doomed unless he accepts Jesus as his or her saviour? Conversely, how could a Christian inmate receive comfort from a rabbi or imam who does not believe Jesus was the Son of God?
Even just looking at the monetary aspect, just how much of that $6 million will be saved by cancelling the part-time contracts of non-Christian ministers? In the grand scheme of things, it's probably peanuts. Nevertheless, that leads to the second reason for outrage.
Why should the taxpayers of this country be on the hook for promoting any religion? If the Christian, Jewish, Muslim or any other religious community want to take their messages to prison inmates, let them do it on their own dime. Lord knows - (forgive the pun) - churches receive enough in the way of tax breaks already. Why should I, as an atheist - (and the number of atheists in the western world is growing every day) - be required to pay for a minister of any religion to travel to prison to give counselling on what I believe are a bunch of fairy tales? The same could be said about public funding of the Catholic school system in Ontario, but that's another story.
Actually, there is a third outrage to the story. As reported by the CBC, Toews' office said: "The government … is not in the business of picking and choosing which religions will be given preferential status through government funding." But by ousting all chaplains except those professing to be Christians, the government has done just that. And still nary a peep.
Of course, an announcement like this plays well with the Conservative Party's base who, like their Ottawa masters, believe prisoners have no rights at all and the tougher we are on criminals, the better. It's hard to fathom the Conservatives' hatred of criminals, however, given that one of Stephen Harper's former ministers squired a woman who was once a Hell's Angels girlfriend, that one of his inner circle was a convicted felon, that Toews himself was convicted of election irregularities, that a former Conservative MP was found with cocaine but went unpunished, that another minister usurped funds designated for border security to build gazebos in his own riding and that Harper's own party was convicted of violating election spending rules.
It seems to me that the move to rid the prison system of non-Christian chaplains is, at the very least, mean-spirited. But, more than that, it is counter-productive, just as it was counter-productive to close down the prison farm near Kingston. The more they remove incentives for prisoners to turn their lives around, the less chance of rehabilitation. The religious community has missed the opportunity to send that message back to Ottawa.
Tell me, am I wrong?
