ResidentInsomniac
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Joined: 04 Jan 2008
Posts: 1981
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Location: Oshawa, ON, Canada
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 Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 12:50 pm Post subject: Ont. mulls alternatives to prayer in legislature |
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First Here Is The News Story. After the story, you will see the response that I wrote to Premier Dalton McGinty.
Ont. mulls alternatives to prayer in legislature
Updated Wed. Feb. 13 2008 12:39 PM ET
toronto.ctv.ca
Premier Dalton McGuinty says it's time Ontario changed the Lord's Prayer at the legislature to better reflect the province's multicultural population.
"More than one-half of people living in the GTA, for example, were born outside the country, and one-third of (residents in) the province were born outside the country," McGuinty told reporters on Wednesday.
"I think it's time for us to assure that we have a prayer that better reflects our diversity."
The premier wants an all-party committee to work with the Speaker's office to look for alternatives to the Christian prayer, which has opened daily proceedings at the legislature since 1969.
The committee will be seeking advice from citizens and faith communities, but it is expected the Lord's Prayer will be replaced.
"I think we're the second-last province in Canada which has not changed its basic prayer that was adopted over a hundred years ago," said McGuinty, who denied the move is an attempt to counter some of the negative feelings stirred up by the debate over funding faith-based schools in last fall's election.
Quebec's National Assembly has only a daily moment of reflection, while Newfoundland and Labrador has no prayer in the House of Assembly. Alberta uses a set list of non-denominational prayers that are rotated, and British Columbia also rotates the prayers but allows individual members to select the daily reading.
A House of Commons committee agreed on the wording for a new, non-sectarian prayer in 1994, which was adopted in 2004.
Ontario's opposition parties were informed of the plan with a letter from the premier. There wasn't any immediate criticism.
"We have to make sure we recognize the modern day reality of Ontario as it is in 2008, but also make sure that we recognize the traditions and history of this place because I think that's important," Conservative Leader John Tory told reporters.
With a report from CTV Toronto's Paul Bliss and files from The Canadian Press
I am shaking so bad over this one. Here is the letter that I just emailed to Dalton McGinty.
Mr. McGinty,
I have sat by for over five years going without a doctor in Oshawa. I have stood by while the education system went from bad to worse. I have sat by watching poverty become a mainstay of Society rather than a dark mark upon it. I have sat by and watched drug crime climb to all time highs; however, when you discuss removing The Lord's Prayer, from our hallowed Halls of Government, that is just too much.
To say that saying The Lord's Prayer is a hundred year old tradition and it is time to change is like saying we should take Government, Structure, Law and Order from Society. Our laws are based on the Bible. If there is a Member of Parliament who is not Christian, why cannot he/she just pray their own prayer while the Lord's Prayer is being read. Or maybe that is the problem. It is only being read and not spoken from the heart. The Lord's Prayer is more than just words from the Bible. Maybe you need someone new in Government who knows the meaning of the Lord's Prayer to offer it to the Members of Parliament at the dawning of each new day.
The people of Ontario - specifically the White Anglo Saxon Protestants have had to take a back seat to most of everything for fear of offending some other culture or race. We slowly progressed to Holiday Trees and now the Lord's Prayer.
May I remind you Sir, that Ontario and Canada was founded on God. Prayer is no longer in the school and look at how the schools have run a muck. Odd, don't you think Sir, that if we were in some foreign country, we would have to adapt to the culture and society of that country; but, in Ontario and Canada, it is the Canadian who has to adapt to all other cultures for fear of offending? There is something so terribly wrong with that.
I am tired of being offended. I was born in this country and in this province. I was one of the fifty Ontario High School students who so proudly sang with love and pride in our hearts and tears in our eyes, the Ontario, Canada Song for the Ontario Pavilion in Osaka, Japan for Expo '70. The way the Politics of both the Provincial and Federal Governments are going, I am sadly shaking my head and am becoming more disillusioned and embarrassed to say that I am an Ontarian and Canadian.
I urge you Sir to pray upon this, speak to your Clergy and not the Governments' and rethink this outrageous and dangerous decision. Without God, we have anarchy.
Remove the Lord's Prayer, Sir, and you have lost my vote and support and most importantly, God.
Sincerely
L. Lynne Doucette
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