The College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada is committed to facilitating engagement amongst its membership as well as with the Royal Society of Canada and the public. In order to facilitate engagement and to showcase the expertise that is resident amongst our College members, the RSC College Webinar Series will be hosted by the Royal Society of Canada three times annually. This webinar series will be managed by the College executive on the advice of College Council and supported by Walter House.
What is Canadian Secularism?
Canadians find ourselves at a time when the nature and demands of “secularism” in Canada are both unclear and highly contested. The most immediate and high-profile touchstone for debates about secularism in Canada is Quebec’s Act respecting the laicity of the State, which regulates the wearing of religious symbols in Quebec in the name of a brand of secularism, while invoking the notwithstanding clause in the Charter to do so — the latter being the focus of a case to be heard at the Supreme Court of Canada. But debating and wrestling with the public status of religion in Canada has a deep history that interacts with political principles or ideals like multiculturalism, pluralism, sovereignty, neutrality and equality. When this is combined with the highly indeterminate and unstable concept of “secularism” itself, we are left with a nest of difficult questions to think through. Basic among those questions is the title of this webinar: “What is Canadian Secularism?”
This webinar brings together experts in religious studies, anthropology, political science, and law to explore the different understandings of secularism at play in Canada, and various frameworks that can help us better understand the contemporary politics of religious difference in Canada.
Panelists
Benjamin L. Berger is a Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. His areas of research and teaching specialization are law and religion, legal and social theory, criminal and constitutional law, and the law of evidence. He has published broadly in these fields and is the author or editor of multiple books. Professor Berger convenes the Osgoode Colloquium in Law, Religion & Social Thought.
Allison Harell (PhD, McGill University) is a Professor of Political Science at the Université du Québec à Montreal. She is currently the co-principal investigator of the Canadian Election Study and a fellow at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research in the Boundaries, Membership and Belonging Program. Her research in political psychology and public opinion focuses primarily on how group identities and intergroup dynamics influence politics.
Pamela E. Klassen is Professor of Study of Religion at the University of Toronto and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Her books include The Story of Radio Mind: A Missionary’s Journey on Indigenous Land (U Chicago Press, 2018) and the forthcoming Making Promises: Treaties, Oaths, and Covenants in Multi-Religious and Multi-Jurisdictional Societies, co-edited with Benjamin L. Berger and Monique Scheer (U of Toronto Press). She was the William Lyon Mackenzie King Visiting Professor at Harvard University in 2022-23.
David Koussens is a professor at the Faculty of Law of the Université de Sherbrooke. A jurist and sociologist, he has held the Law, Religion and Secularism Research Chair since 2012. His work analyzes the evolution of legal models of secularism and the management of religious pluralism in liberal democracies. He has published L’épreuve de la neutralité (Bruylant, 2015), Secularism(s) in Contemporary France (Springer, 2023), and La laïcité organisée en Belgique francophone (Éditions de l'Université de Bruxelles, 2025).