Iqaluit city councillor supports continuation of opening prayer

Over the last few days I have been taken aback by the number of people who have asked me what I think of the prayer we do before Iqaluit council meetings, and whether or not I would be in favour of removing the prayer from the city council agenda.

After a great deal of personal reflection and deliberation, I feel strongly that the prayer before Iqaluit council meetings should continue.

The recent Supreme Court case Mouvement laïque québécois v. City of Saguenay is clear that the state should not push any one religion or any one specific faith on its citizens.

In that case, the town in question had every council member recite a Catholic prayer in unison and make the sign of the cross twice. They also had a large crucifix and an illuminated sacred heart picture on the wall in their chamber.

The Supreme Court found:

“The recitation of the prayer at the council’s meetings was above all else a use by the council of public powers to manifest and profess one religion (Catholicism) to the exclusion of all others. It was much more than the simple expression of a cultural tradition. It was a practice by which the state actively, and with full knowledge of what it was doing, professed a theistic faith.”

In Iqaluit, council meetings start with a very discreet 20-second blessing in Inuktitut by an elder, usually Coun. Simon Nattaq. Clearly there is a significant distinction between the elaborate ceremony which took place in Quebec and the way we begin Iqaluit council meetings.

As an Iqaluit council member, I am always conscious of the fact that we are city councillors in the capital of Nunavut, a territory born of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement.

I believe that our prayer-blessing is in keeping with cultural tradition in Nunavut and, as an agnostic person myself, I do not feel it is an imposition of any one theology or religion on me or anyone else.

I stand during the prayer as I view it an important act of respect for the place we live and the people who live here, and in solemn reflection of the importance of the meeting and the impact of our decisions.

For these reasons I support the prayer and its continuation.

Coun. Stephen Mansell
Iqaluit

Email your letters to editor@nunatsiaq.com.

Nunatsiaq News welcomes letters to the editor. But we are under no obligation to publish any given letter at any given time.

In our print edition, we usually print letters on a first-come, first-served, space-available basis. In our online edition, we usually print letters as soon as we are able to prepare them for publication.

All letters are edited for length, grammar, punctuation, spelling, taste and libel. You may withhold your name by request, but we must know who you are before we publish your letter.