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Edmonton likely joining other cities purging prayers from council meetings

Don Iveson visits Edmonton AM for mayor's phone-in

God may soon be gone for good from Edmonton city council.

The city’s executive committee voted this week to recommend prayers be permanently abolished from council meetings, to be replaced with a moment of silent reflection.

City council will vote next week on the committee recommendation.

The Alberta capital had already suspended prayers following an April ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada involving the city of Saguenay, Que.

Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson was not immediately available for comment. He told CBC News that the court’s decision clearly prohibits prayers in a government setting.

“I don’t see us having much of a choice here,” Iveson says.

The high court decision concerning Saguenay brought to an end a nine-year legal battle.

Each city council meeting in Saguenay began with the mayor reciting a prayer with the sign of the cross, accompanied by the words, “in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

City resident Alain Simoneau, an atheist who regularly attended council meetings, filed a complaint with the province’s human rights tribunal, alleging discrimination.

In 2011, the tribunal sided with Simoneau and ordered an end to the prayers and removal of a crucifix in the city council chamber. Simoneau was also awarded damages.

But Saguenay Mayor Jean Tremblay vowed to fight and the city filed an appeal of the decision. The Quebec Court of Appeal ruled in his favour in 2013, overturning the tribunal decision.

Simoneau and the atheist group Mouvement laïque québécois appealed to the country’s highest court.

The Supreme Court judgment says the state must remain neutral in the matter of religion.

“This neutrality requires that the state neither favour nor hinder any particular belief, and the same holds true for non-belief. It requires that the state abstain from taking any position and thus avoid adhering to a particular belief,” it says.

Rev. David Fekete, president of the Edmonton Interfaith Centre, says the city must abide the ruling but he’s still disappointed.

“The ruling seems to say that city council can’t endorse either belief or non-belief. My take on this is that if you’re silencing the voice of religion, non-belief wins,” Fekete tells Yahoo Canada News.

He says the high court ruling seemed to suggest municipalities should encourage diversity and the wide range of ethnicity of their populations.

“By taking away prayer, which is a fundamental element of culture in many societies… I think it diminishes the diversity that was present in city hall before this ruling,” he says.

In light of the Supreme Court of Canada decision most of those municipal councils across the country that still included prayer in official meetings suspended the practice, at the very least pending review of the court’s decision.

That included Ottawa, Calgary and Halifax.

Winnipeg council, however, says councillors will continue praying ahead of meetings.

“The issue was considered by the city’s legal services as well as its governance committee,” Michelle Finley, the city’s communications officer, tells Yahoo Canada News.

“The process continues with the invocation given by a different councillor each council meeting, in rotation. Each councillor is able to read a provided standard non-denominational reading, or otherwise provide an invocation, short meditation or other words of their choosing.”

The non-denominational approach promotes diversity and respects the ruling, the city has said.

Other municipalities, such as Vancouver and Victoria, had already abolished prayer at council meetings. Montreal’s municipal council voted to end prayers in 1987.