While the federal government was presumably aiming to reduce costs by eliminating part-time chaplains in prison, it’s now facing the burden of defending a lawsuit over alleged discrimination involved in the cuts.
According to The Canadian Press, seven British Columbia prisoners have launched a lawsuit over the fact the cuts have almost completely eliminated chaplaincy services by those of non-Christian faiths.
The litigation follows an announcement last fall that the government was cancelling the contracts of many of its part-time chaplains, some of whom are Christian. But many of the non-Christian chaplains work part-time, meaning the cuts would fall disproportionately on them.
At the time, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews cast doubt on the appropriateness of using taxpayer money for part-time chaplains of non-Christian faiths. Instead, the government emphasized that its remaining chaplains — almost all of them Christian — would provide multi-faith services.
Cutting costs is one thing, particularly at a time of strained budgets and as the parliamentary budget officer released a report last week noting sharply rising spending in the justice sector while crime rates decrease.
But to focus those cuts on employees and services of non-Christian faiths is clearly discriminatory. It’s fine to have chaplains providing services to people of other faiths given the financial and resource constraints but it’s inappropriate to have only Christian employees offering them. Being truly multi-faith means having chaplains of various religions available to provide services.
Clearly, the government had other options. It obviously could have chosen not to disproportionately focus the cuts on chaplains of non-Christian faiths.
If it wanted to avoid having part-time chaplains, it could have implemented the cuts over time while transitioning employees of non-Christian faiths to full-time status. That might cost a bit more, but so will a lawsuit, particularly if the government loses.
As the prisoners behind the lawsuit have noted, faith can play an important role in rehabilitation in jail.
While this government has emphasized punishment and deterrence instead, it has also expressed a fondness for freedom of religion. Disproportionately cutting the chaplains from non-Christian faiths, then, was unnecessary and probably counterproductive. The government clearly could have acted more prudently.
