Wow, What an Impact?
From ECP Centre
Have you been reading No Apologies' Daily News items over the past couple of months?
If you have, you will have seen the story we broke - "Brampton, Ontario - Shades of Stalinist Russia" - on Brampton, Ontario's city council attempt to severely restrict freedom of religion for area churches.
A multi-faith group got organised to fight these measures and they credit No Apologies for breaking the story wide open and putting the Brampton Councillors on the defensive.
As a result, we were able to report this month that the city council has backed away from its radical agenda and has implemented a consultation process for its proposals.
This Brampton news story is important enough that I want to highlight the details of it for you here. No Apologies' news analysts recognized the national importance of this issue because of the precedent it would have set for the rest of the country. Judging by the response to our stories, you and your friends also realized the significance of this story. Two thousand people read our first article within the first few hours of it being posted. Many of those who read it sent it to their friends - some by forwarding the actual web link, and others by copying the column into their email programs and sending it on that way. Those friends then forwarded it on to their friends, and so on. This was a textbook model of how we had envisioned No Apologies to work; the notion of a "network" of Christians, informed of specific issues, and then taking action. And take action they did.
So what happened in Brampton?
On January 4th, No Apologies Editor Al Siebring blew the lid off the secret "Places of Worship" study drafted by Brampton's city planners in Toronto's westernmost suburb. The study proposed a number of restrictions on the rights and privileges churches have historically enjoyed.
Among other things, the report was recommending:
Levying taxes on all "non-worship space" owned by religious organizations (offices, kitchens, nurseries, fellowship halls, parking lots, etc would all be taxed.)
A redefinition of what constitutes a "place of worship" — including a removal of provisions expressly allowing church properties to be used for "community services" such as day care centres, soup kitchens, etc.
Major restrictions on new church start-ups, including regulating what space these start-ups could rent, where, and for how long.
Major increases in permitting fees for renovations for places of worship.
Severe restrictions on "house churches", Bible studies, or any other regularly-scheduled home-based gatherings for religious purposes. (Those gatherings would be restricted to no more than 20 people — children included.)
In the weeks that followed the NoApologies publication, Christians from Halifax to Vancouver inundated Brampton City Hall with emails, phone calls, and other communications. Church leaders from across the country also got in touch with us to say that they considered the case extremely important; that they were being told by their municipal councils that everyone was "watching Brampton" for the precedents the regulations there might set. We continued to cover the story at NoApologies, providing updates as warranted. We also became the official news site of record for the "Brampton Faith Coalition", the group that had been formed in response to the original Places of Worship study.
So what happened?
We were very pleased and thankful to report most recently that at a meeting on February 20th, the City of Brampton's Planning Department released a revised version of its "Place of Worship" study. And the recommendations to tax church property, to redefine what churches can do, to restrict their growth, or to regulate "house church" meetings? They're all gone.
|
