Update: Mélanie Joly, Canada’s new Minister of Canadian Heritage, is one of the 16 cabinet ministers who skipped “So Help Me God.”
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“Stop showing off, Canada. You’re embarrassing us,” are the final sentences of Half of the New Canadian Cabinet Members Chose to Skip ‘So Help Me God’ in Their Oaths of Office“:
Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs
Jody Wilson-Raybould, Minister of Justice and Attorney General
Stéphane Dion, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Scott Brison, President of the Treasury Board
Navdeep Singh Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development
Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development
Catherine McKenna, Minister of the Environment and Climate Change
Maryann Mihychuk, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour
Maryam Monsef , Minister of Democratic Institutions
Carla Qualtrough, Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities
Harjit Singh Sajjan, Minister of National Defence
Amarjeet Sohi, Minister of Infrastructure and Communities
Patricia Hajdu, Minister for the Status of Women
Hunter Tootoo, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and Canadian Coast Guard
Bardish Chagger, Minister of Small Business and Tourism
Thank you for providing the information for this post.
Note: A Canadian Atheist commenter sent me an email yesterday. His count for the number of ministers who skipped “So Help Me God” is 16.
Now if we could only get rid of the Queen – that is after the royal family pays its share of reparations to our indigenous people’s.
The Queen has done nothing wrong, because the Queen has done nothing. If reparations are to be paid, it should come from those MPs who were in government at the relevant times. Parliament should not be a zone of immunity from the laws.
As for “our indigenous peoples” I think Trudeau said it best, that “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian”. He doesn’t actually believe that, but it’s nice to hear once in a while. What is needed is to put to bed these disagreements, either by relinquishing Canadian land back to these people, and letting them form their own separate countries, or by integrating them into Canada as provinces or municipalities. But this idea that we’re going to have Canadian people that are treated differently is racist and ought to be illegal.
I was that commenter.
The list above seems to miss Melanie Joly. Between Bains and Duclos in the order of the list.
Admittedly, some of the secular oathers might hold other beliefs not called god.
Speaking little to no French, I came to realize that the interpreter was mistakenly using the specific word “swear” in the case of “declare” where afterwards I didn’t hear the interpreted “so help me god” at the end. Then when (and if) the minister says it in English the word “declare” was used.
CBC has a 4:15:00’ish video of all the proceedings. Fast forward and rewind at your leisure. Maybe you’ll find other things to write home about 🙂 Maybe I made mistakes in those first few oaths. Some people carried what I can assume to be a buybull. Oddly, with all the openly secular vows going on the minister of science said so help me god. Sigh.
Thank you dusttodust. Unfortunately, Friendly Atheist posted before I did.
Oh I know. That was to clarify for the readers what I saw missing from the list you got from elsewhere.
If I had seen the list I probably wouldn’t’ve bothered to go through the video. But hey I found a discrepancy. Not saying my findings are perfect of course.
Canada uses (and is proud of) a gender test for cabinet.
The US is apparently upset it didn’t find a way to popularize blatant sexism first.
what a disgrace. If they don’t like the oath, they shouldn’t sit