Thirty-five Canadian municipalities will celebrate Christian Heritage Month next month. Pictured: Jay and Molly Banerjei. Photo Supplied.
Thanks to an Indian-born Canadian, 35 communities and municipalities will celebrate Christian Heritage Month in December.
Molly Banerjei, CEO and co-founder of the Christian Music Festival in Toronto, spearheaded the idea. She said City Hall always gave her hassles when organizing the festival, but never more so than in 2024. While five Indian festivals get routinely greenlit in Toronto every year, only great persistence secured her 8th annual festival at Nathan Phillips Square this past June.
The attempts to sideline the festival lit a fire in Banerjei. She decided to promote December as Christian Heritage Month wherever she could so the faith was properly respected.
As luck, fate, or even God would have it, federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre visited the festival and liked Banerjei’s idea. Soon, his party introduced a petition at the Conservative Party of Canada to back the idea. The petition acknowledges that Canada was founded on Christian heritage, has 19.6 million Christians, and that several other religions have government-decreed calendar designations.
In December 2023, Marilyn Gladu, Conservative MP for Sarnia-Lambton, introduced Bill C-369, the Christian Heritage Month Act. It was not ratified. Meanwhile, Banerjei’s initiative has prevailed in cities in Ontario, B.C., Alberta, and Saskatchewan.
So far 35 communities and municipalities have, or will, declare December to be Christian Heritage Month. Banerjei is working on the Toronto District School Board, provincial governments, and the Federal Liberal Government to make similar proclamations.
According to the ChristianHeritageMonth.ca website, the purpose of the event is to acknowledge and celebrate the historical and ongoing contributions of Christian communities to Canadian culture, society, and values. This contribution, the site says, has been “overshadowed” and such declarations would ensure that Christians are recognized similarly to other religious communities.
The mission of Banerjei in her Christian Heritage Month project is to acknowledge the significant impact of Christian communities on Canadian history, values of compassion, service, and unity, and the cultural fabric of the nation.
On Nov. 14, the City of Toronto became one of about 25 Ontario municipalities to make the declaration. The motion was introduced by Nick Mantas and Francis Nunziata and passed 11-4 with the support of Mayor Olivia Chow and Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie.
Debate was heated at times. Councillor Gord Perks voted against the motion, citing as an obstacle possible name associations with the Christian Heritage Party and Christian Heritage Front.
Perks said Christianity should not get special recognition because its role was ingrained. He recalled having to say the Lord’s Prayer as a child in public school.
“A member of council came up and said, what’s wrong with this? There’s Hindu heritage month … These are not equal questions,” Perks said. He said minority religions were acknowledged in an “effort to rebalance” the country.
“In Canada, every day, every minute, every second, every law, everything we do is Christian time. It is the law of this land,” Perks insisted.
Perks’ comments betray some strange ideas, held not only by him, that don’t add up. He is arguing the reason that Hindu heritage should be celebrated is that there hasn’t been much of it in Canada. If that is the case, then how legitimate is the case that Canada has such a heritage and why should something so allegedly marginal be proclaimed?
Perks is amiss to assume that because he said the Lord’s Prayer in public school more than 40 years ago that Canada is still acting in a Christian manner. He forgets that the Supreme Court struck down federal Lord’s Day legislation in 1985 that previously made Sunday a nationwide day of rest. Whether due to youth or immigration, more than half of current Canadians have no recollection of saying the Lord’s prayer in school or a Sunday shopping ban.
It is also a hard assertion to back up that Canada’s euthanasia regime done on “Christian time” since this faith is the “law of this land.” No, our public institutions are focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) so as to exclude Christians, whites, males, and equality. Undoing western values is, unfortunately, the actual point of DEI.
How long can Canada continue the good parts of its heritage without any reinforcement and the constant clamour of everything else? If our country is based, as our constitution says, on principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law, how long will it be so if we forget what it means?
Given Banerjei is an Indian-born woman who immigrated to Canada 35 years ago, she may seem an ironic herald of her message. Yet, in other ways, she is perfect for the role. Who else in our politically correct times could persuade Canadian public officials to recall the nation’s Christian heritage?
