Each day New Brunswick’s legislative assembly gathers, proceedings start off with the same refrain: “now let us pray.”
The daily prayer is baked into routine proceedings and is part of the standing rules of the assembly. It begins with two invocations, one for the lieutenant governor and another for the monarch, before a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.
But according to Rajan Zed, a request to perform a Hindu prayer at the beginning of a sitting was rejected, bringing fresh scrutiny to the practice of saying a daily Christian prayer.
Zed is a Nevada-based Hindu and interfaith activist who has performed Hindu prayers before both houses of the United States federal government. He says a request to do the same in New Brunswick was turned down.
He claims that he was told by the clerk of the assembly that they do “not intend to deviate” from the practice of saying a Christian prayer at the outset of the day.
In a statement, Zed said “that it is simply a case of blatant unfairness, exclusionary attitude, discrimination, favoritism, imposing one kind of religious observance; and does not speak well of a democratic society.”
Clerk of the legislature Shayne Davies turned down a request for comment.
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Zed went on to call for the legislature to move towards a multifaith version of a daily prayer, rather than sticking with a single Christian one.
“Since New Brunswick Legislative Assembly represented every resident of New Brunswick irrespective of religion/denomination/non-belief, it would be quite befitting in this increasingly diverse state to do a rotation of prayers representing major religions and aboriginal spirituality and including slots for the thoughts of non-believers,” he said.
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According to constitutional expert Lyle Skinner, the practice of saying a daily prayer is as old as the legislature itself.
“It’s occurred since way back when the assembly first met in Saint John in 1786,” he said.
While the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that prayers prior to city council meetings violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Skinner says the provincial legislature is exempt from that ruling and has the ability to make its own rules about how it governs itself.
Traditionally, the prayer was read by a chaplain, but since 2018 various MLAs have taken turns reciting it.
In 2019, recently-elected Green MLA Kevin Arseneau tried to have the prayer struck from routine proceedings, which would require a majority vote of all members. He wanted to replace the prayer with a moment of reflection, which has been adopted by provincial legislatures in Nova Scotia and Alberta.
“New Brunswick is a lot more diverse than Christianity at this time,” he said.
“Moments of silence and different faith denomination prayers would make probably the MLAs reflect on the diversity that we do represent in New Brunswick.”
Other legislatures have taken a different approach. Ontario recites the Lord’s Prayer and then a prayer from another denomination on a rotating basis and the prayer that opens proceedings in the house of commons isn’t an explicitly Christian one.
The practice in New Brunswick differs from others that underpin the working of the assembly in that it is just that: a practice. Arseneau said practices and procedures of the assembly are living and constantly shift.
“We change traditions every day in the legislative assembly by creating precedents, procedural wise,” he said.
“So to give that as an excuse, it’s more the kind of excuse that the legislative assembly gives when it doesn’t have any other arguments.”
Skinner says that while changing the custom would take the approval of a majority of MLAs in order to change the standing rules, there’s no reason why that couldn’t happen.
“There’s no legal or constitutional reason why that occurs, it’s simply a function of tradition,” he said.
“It’s the same sort of reason that the speaker wears a tricorn hat, because they’ve always worn a tricorn hat.”
In 2019, Premier Blaine Higgs told the Canadian Press that the attempts to do away with the daily Christian prayer were an attempt to “pick away” at historical traditions in the province, and that he wouldn’t change the practice so long as he’s premier.
Liberal house leader Guy Arseneault said the idea is worth looking at, but says it needs further study.
“It’s my understanding that this would need to be a decision by legislature administration committee. We as a party want the legislative assembly be as open, welcoming and inclusive as possible so we would be in favour of this topic being discussed by the committee,” he said in an email statement.
But Arseneau says he feels it’s only a matter of time before the province’s house of government replaces it with something that is more reflective of the diversity of 21st century New Brunswick.
“This is going to change. It might just change in 10, 15 years, but it’s going to change eventually.”
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