Jasmin Legue in her letter (Gazette, June 13), scolds "pastors complaining about the federal government’s changes to the funding of summer job programs" to get off their "man-made high horses and practise what Jesus preached." She asks where, in the Bible, it says that "Jesus rejected or alienated anyone." I ask in reply if she has ever read the various copies of the Bible she claims to own.
Are we speaking about the same Jesus, I wonder? Yes, He did "forgive Mary Magdalene, meet the needs of the poor, heal the lame." He also excoriated the moneychangers in the temple, drove away scores of His followers with the Bread of Life discourse (John 6, if you're curious), and even lambasted his own apostle as "Satan" at one point.
But let's put all that aside, because in the end it's actually all irrelevant. What has been the main point of controversy with regard to the Canada Summer Jobs program, that has all these pastors in uproar? It's the introduction of an attestation, which any and all applicants to the program must agree to before even being considered for funding. This attestation signals that the applying party aligns with the sitting Canadian government's stance on certain contentious issues, access to abortion services being one of these.
Hopefully, it should be obvious why the inclusion of such an attestation is problematic. What does youth summer camp in Kananaskis, or a historic sawmill in Nova Scotia, care about such issues?
Why is it necessary that they attest alignment with the sitting government's values on issues that don't pertain to their programming and purpose at all? And why are they even being expected to attest in this way? Do sitting governments not change from time to time? Would Ms. Legue be as dismissive of those protesting the program if the attestation it was forcing on its applicants was set against abortion, for example?
The pastors are right to protest these changes to the summer Jobs program. We should all protest them, because it is odious (and a violation of human rights) to force political compliance on people.
Kenneth Kully, St. Albert
