Law and Religious Pluralism in Canada.

The essays in this timely volume, which mainly address Canada’s strongly accommodationist approach to religion, offer a good sampling of current Canadian legal scholarship in this area.

Shauna Van Praagh depicts how the law’s resolution of “normal neighbourhood annoyances” has shaped Montreal’s Outrement district, home to a large community of Chasidic Jews. Jennifer Nedelsky and Roger Hutchinson reflect on how same-sex marriage was debated within the United Church of Canada, drawing tentative lessons for broader public discourse. Drawing on pluralist theory, David Schneiderman argues that the right to free association is key in conceptualizing the interaction of law and religion. Bruce Ryder describes Canada’s uniquely accommodationist approach to religious equality, distinguishing it from the assimilationist approaches of the United States, France, and Turkey. Alvin Esau critically explores how the “outside law” of the secular state supplants the “inside law” of religious communities. Pascale Fournier explains how Islamic law structures the relative bargaining power of spouses in a Muslim marriage—a “distributional narrative” overlooked in the Ontario Sharia law debate. Lori G. Beaman discusses the challenges involved in defining “religion” for the purposes of the law. Richard Moon looks at how Canadian law at times treats religion as a matter of choice to be protected on grounds of autonomy, and at other times treats it as a matter of identity to be protected on grounds of equality; he details how this ambiguity runs through the case law related to government support for religious practice. Lorraine Weinrib argues that the Charter has altered the dynamics of Canadian politics, by establishing a “direct and primary” relationship between citizens and the state; Ontario’s debate over Sharia arbitration is discussed as a case in point. Benjamin Berger contends that the law projects liberal ideological commitments onto religion, conceptualizing religion as an expression of individual autonomy, belonging in the private sphere.

The collection might be criticized, on some levels, for its homogeneity; for example, the essays are all fundamentally sympathetic to Canadian accommodationism, and, as concerns the role of religion in public decision making, none propound a stronger separation of religion and politics. There is little by way of dialectic between the contributors, and so the book’s value lies in the sum of its parts.