Richelle Wiseman

Over the past week, many Albertans have reacted strongly to the Alberta government’s Bill 45, which adds parental rights to the Human Rights Act. The change would allow parents to remove children from school classes teaching materials they don’t support.

Teachers and human rights activists fear the bill will encourage parents to prevent children from taking valuable science, health and sexuality classes for religious reasons, thus undermining the public school curriculum. Some parents, on the other hand, assert their right to object to certain values-laden materials taught in public schools as normative, under the guise of being “neutral”.

Labels like “intolerant”, “narrow-minded”, “bigoted”, and “homophobic”, are tossed around to describe Albertans who favour the legislation.

But a recent national poll conducted by Angus-Reid for MACLEANS magazine offers up a very different picture of Albertans. The statistics show that Albertans are the most tolerant of Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Jews, and Buddhists, compared to other provinces and regions in Canada. The stereotype of“red neck Bible Belt” Alberta is shattered by this poll.

The May 4th MACLEANS Magazine cover story, “What Canadians Think of Sikhs, Jews, Christians, Muslims…” outlines the limits of religious tolerance across Canada. For all of our boasting about being a tolerant, multicultural society, Canadians show there is room for improvement in how we view people of various religious faiths.

The article focuses on statistics such as 72% of Canadians hold a positive view of Christianity while only 30% think the same of Sikhism, and 45% of Canadians believe that Islam encourages violence.

However, on the Angus-Reid website, the full set of questions and data tables for this poll offer up a more intriguing picture than was reported in MACLEANS. For instance, for the question about Islam being a mostly peaceful religion, Albertans scored the highest in the country with 44% saying yes, and Quebec scored the lowest with 13%.

Alberta scored higher than any other province in holding a positive view of Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jews. For Islam, Alberta scored the highest for having a moderate to favorable view of Muslims, (38%) while both Quebec and Atlantic Canada scored the lowest at 17%.
The Angus-Reid poll also asked what level of familiarity people had with various religious, and if they had any acquaintances who are followers of those faiths.

For the question, “Do you have a good basic understanding of the teachings and beliefs of…?”, nationally the highest scores for “Do not” were for Sikhism (67%) and Hinduism (61%), showing Canadians are less familiar with these faiths. Fifty per cent said they do not have a good basic understanding of Islam. Alberta and BC scored the highest in responding they do have a good basic understanding of Islam (35% and 37% respectively).

To the question, “Do you personally have friends who are followers of any of these religions or not?”, the positive responses are revealing. Across the country, 89% of Canadians have Christian friends, 45% have Jewish friends, 32% have Muslim friends, 27% have Buddhist friends, 24% have Hindu friends, and 16% have Sikh friends. Regionally, some differences are quite interesting.

BC and Alberta scored the highest in having Sikh friends, (36% and 25% respectively), perhaps due to larger Sikh populations in these two provinces. BC scored the highest for having Hindu friends (38%), followed by Ontario (35%) and then Alberta (31%). For Muslim friends, Ontario scored the highest (42%), which is not surprising given that half the Muslims in Canada live in the Greater Toronto Area. Alberta was close behind with 39% and BC scored 32%.

Overall, the data suggests familiarity with the basic teachings and beliefs of Canada’s diverse religions, combined with having friends who hold these beliefs leads to greater tolerance and appreciation of different faiths. Quebec emerges as the least tolerant province in Canada in this poll.

Alberta, in spite of its “red neck” reputation, is blessed with a very diverse population, and in particular, a diverse workforce which has brought us all into greater contact with Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Hindus. This exposure to colleagues and friends of different faiths has helped Albertans become more tolerant.

This is not to say that all Albertans are tolerant of diverse faiths and viewpoints. Sadly, there is still some ignorance, fear, racism and intolerance to overcome, here and across the country. There are challenges facing the province in accommodating conflicting religious values and practices in the workplace, in public policy, and in the classroom.

But Alberta is faring much better than expected.