Lord’s Prayer not coming back to Brampton council meetings for now
Brampton council voted 9-2 Wednesday against reinstating the Lord’s Prayer at the beginning of council meetings

thestar.com
Feb. 015
By San Grewal

Brampton councillors voted not to reinstate the reciting of the Lord’s Prayer at the beginning of council meetings, despite pleas from some city residents.

At a committee meeting Wednesday delegates called for the reinstatement after council chambers were packed last week with angry residents demanding the prayer be brought back. They were told it would be dealt with and a 9-2 vote closed the door on the issue, for now. A vote was taken and passed to hold a public meeting on the issue in April. It will now take a two-thirds majority vote of council to re-open the issue after the public meeting is held.

Councillors John Sprovieri and Michael Palleschi were the only members who voted to bring back the Lord’s Prayer. A motion to replace the current non-denominational universal invocation being used at the beginning of meetings with a minute of reflection was eventually withdrawn.

“As a former school board trustee at the time when the practice of reciting the Lord’s Prayer was discontinued in the 1990s to comply with provincial direction, I found it unusual that the City of Brampton continued the practice into the 2000s,” said Councillor Elaine Moore, after Wednesday’s meeting.

“Mayor (Linda) Jeffrey, after carefully consulting with each newly elected member of council, made the right decision to discontinue the practice.”

“This term of council cannot be occupied dealing with issues that the province has already dealt with. We have incredible challenges ahead of us: jobs, how we’re going to keep taxes in line, transit and gridlock, how to pay for badly needed infrastructure, new funding models, and instilling a culture of transparency and accountability. We cannot afford to get distracted the way we unfortunately have in the past. I’m not trying to be disrespectful, but religious issues should not be our focus.”

Last week a group of residents presented Jeffrey with a petition featuring 5,000 signatures from residents who want to see the Lord’s Prayer brought back to council.

A statement from Jeffrey’s office pointed to a 1999 Ontario Court of Appeal decision that ruled reciting the Lord’s Prayer at municipal meetings violated freedom of conscience and religion provisions in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Supreme Court of Canada is set to make a ruling in a case out of Saguenay, Que. that will set the precedent for all municipalities in the country.