Whose Children Are They, Anyway?

By Kevin Boonstra

May 1, 2012

Constitutional lawyer Kevin L. Boonstra analyzes a recent Supreme Court decision on parental rights. What he finds make him very nervous.

This is, in part, because the public school system cannot be harmed by allowing parents to do the very thing sought by the ERC program – the religious and moral instruction of children Despite this different approach, Justice LeBel came to the same conclusion, namely that the parents had not objectively proven that compelling their children into the ERC program would interfere with their religious freedom By requiring that parents subject their children to public education that they sincerely believe undermines religious instruction in the home before they can successfully articulate a Charter challenge, the Court undermined the protection afforded to the dissemination of religious belief in the home The majority focused merely on the validity of the ERC program and said little about the position of the parents, their specific religious beliefs and practices and their claim for a constitutional exemption The parents sought court orders exempting their children and declaring that the ERC program violated their constitutional right to freedom of religion Justice LeBel agreed with the majority in the conclusion that the ERC simply imparted "information about different views of the world," without deferring to the concerns and conclusions of parents, who are charged with, and constitutionally protected in, the religious education of their children

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