That's impossible. The law can't dictate people's attitudes; it dictates their actions.
A right isn't a law --perhaps that's the source of confusion. A right is just something that's right, in regards to what it is to be human. The
guarantee of rights in the Charter dictate law because they are legislated: as a Charter, each level of government is obligated to uphold the lot -- to uphold the
guarantee of "the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."
The right of freedom of religion implies that every other person has the obligation not to interfere with a person's expression of religion, and that the government has the responsibility to ensure that this occurs.
Obligating everyone to a right would violate another right, the right to personal thought, opinion and expression, and the Charter specifically says that one guarantee will not violate another.
The government has the obligation via these guarantees that
they don't violate these rights --they're not a person, they don't have personal thought, opinion or freedom of expression. That's why the Charter specifically applies to the government, so that no one person (personhood) rules the government.
If you have a right but the people around you don't have the obligation to not infringe upon that right, then you don't actually have the right.
This is important: infringement upon a right is not a right. And it's not spelled out in the Charter, and it's not guaranteed there.
And you always have a right. No one can take it away from you.
And I'm arguing that it has no such obligation. The Charter right to freedom of religion doesn't require a school board to set up a chapel on school grounds for any religious group that comes knocking.
OTOH, the Charter most certainly does require that a right or benefit extended by the government (i.e. the school and/or board) to one religion must be extended on an equal basis to all religions.
It's "obligation" is not to set up, conduct or supervise a prayer group, right. That's not what I'm saying. And that's not what they're doing.
The government doesn't
extend rights. Gawd, what country do you live in?
The government, via the Charter, guarantees, i.e. protects, our rights.
Our rights.
We have the right to practice our freedom of religion. The Charter guarantees that, so the school board (the government) provides at our behest. It's all about us, we drive this situation, not the government.
Isn't that what you just argued? In case you forgot:
I said it correctly.
It's entirely relevant. If the students' Charter rights were being met before the decision was made to provide the space, then it doesn't work to argue that providing the space was necessary to meet the requirements of the Charter.
The student's Charter rights were being met, because they could practice their religion. The school board offering space at the school is a convenience at the request of the parents/community. The Charter is flagged as justification because people in Toronto seem to unanimously equate "public" with "secular".
The school board is extending a privilege to Muslim students that it isn't extending to other students.
I'm old enough to remember when we still had the Lord's Prayer at the beginning of every school day. There was a transition period when, much like this Muslim prayer, students could choose to participate or not. The courts ruled that this was unacceptable because students could still be pressured to participate... so the Christian prayer was removed from schools, despite the objection of many Christian students and parents. Despite this, the decision was made that organized Christian prayers were inappropriate in a school setting.
Now we have a situation where the board has decided that organized Muslim prayers are appropriate. How is this not unequal treatment on the basis of religion?
Requiring students to recite a prayer is silly. Allowing them to is right. The school running a prayer session is silly. The school allowing a group to come in and run their own prayers at the request of the community is right.
At very least, not wrong.
From what I understand, they have asked for this. I'm having trouble finding a link - the school board uses the term "accommodation" for its process of assigning students to schools, so those links are burying any relevant ones.
"Accommodation" can specifically mean providing space. Perhaps some other search criteria would be better.
