Response to the 10 Aug 2026 Statement of the Military Ordinary on the 2026 CAF Reflection policy
By Martin Frith, President, Humanist Canada
I have read with care the statement of Bishop Scott McCaig, Military Ordinary of Canada, regarding CAFMPI 03/26, Spiritual Reflections in Military Settings. While I respect the Bishop’s concern for the religious freedom of Canadian Armed Forces members and chaplains, his characterization of the Instruction Spiritual reflections in military settings has several significant problems.
What Saguenay Actually Says
Let me begin with an important issue of accuracy that needs to be addressed. The Bishop relies substantially upon the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2015 decision in Mouvement laïque québécois v. Saguenay (City), 2015 SCC 16, in arguing that the instruction “appears to be out of sync with the legal rationale of state neutrality.” I do not believe the Court’s decision supports that interpretation.
The Bishop correctly quotes the Court’s central statement that the state “must neither favour nor hinder any belief, and the same holds true for non-belief.” But the significance of Saguenay lies in what the Court meant by neutrality.
The Court did not conclude that state neutrality is achieved by ensuring that many different religious and non-religious perspectives are expressed by the state. Rather, it drew an important distinction between the freedom of individuals to hold and express religious beliefs and the obligation of the state itself to remain neutral.
Indeed, the Supreme Court stated explicitly that “the state does not have a freedom to believe or to manifest a belief.” It distinguished this from the freedom of state officials to practise their own religion when they are not acting in an official capacity.
That distinction matters greatly in the present discussion.
CAFMPI 03/26 does not purport to tell a Catholic chaplain what they may believe, nor does it prohibit Catholic prayer, worship, sacramental ministry, pastoral care or religious observance. It addresses a particular circumstance: an official spiritual reflection delivered publicly within a military setting.
It is therefore important not to conflate restrictions upon what may be expressed during an official CAF function with restrictions upon the religious freedom of CAF members or chaplains generally.
Neutrality Is Not Atheism
There is an even more significant difficulty with the Bishop’s interpretation of Saguenay.
The Bishop writes that “simply because some belief systems do not profess the existence of God, or some other divine source, does not make them neutral,” and that “Atheistic systems of belief require as much assent of intellect and will (faith) as any theistic system of belief.”
But the Supreme Court addressed the underlying constitutional argument directly. In paragraph 133 of Mouvement laïque québécois v. Saguenay (City), the Court stated: “Contrary to the respondents’ argument, abstaining does not amount to taking a stand in favour of atheism or agnosticism.”
This is a critical distinction.
A government that declares that God does not exist would no more be neutral than one that declares that God does exist. But declining to make either declaration is not atheism. It is precisely the kind of governmental abstention articulated by the Court as an expression of state neutrality.
For this reason, I am also concerned by the statement’s characterization of atheistic belief and its subsequent reference to Secular Humanists. Having characterized atheistic systems of belief as requiring “faith” comparable to theistic belief, the Bishop then points to Secular Humanists and their recognized place within the CAF’s Spiritual/Faith Traditions.
For the purposes of this discussion, there is no need to dispute the Bishop’s broader point that atheistic, humanist and other secular perspectives can embody substantive beliefs about the world, values, meaning and purpose.
Where I disagree with the Bishop is in the conclusion he appears to draw from this. A spiritual reflection that does not invoke God does not thereby require assent to atheism, humanism or any other secular worldview. It does not assert that God does not exist, nor does it ask those present to affirm a humanist understanding of meaning or purpose. It simply refrains from asking them to affirm a religious one.
This is precisely the distinction the Supreme Court made in Saguenay. State abstention from religious expression is not the expression of an opposing belief. As the Court stated explicitly, “abstaining does not amount to taking a stand in favour of atheism or agnosticism.”
The same principle applies here. Neutrality is not achieved by replacing religious belief with secular belief; it is achieved by the state declining to require assent to either. A Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Sikh, humanist, atheist or agnostic can bring their own understanding of meaning, purpose and spiritual well-being to an inclusive reflection without the state determining which of those understandings is correct.
Pluralism, Neutrality and the CAF
The Bishop further writes that the Court “ruled in favour of an open secularism, the freedom of religious conscience and expression for all rather than limiting rights, and enforcing restrictions.” He contrasts this with CAFMPI 03/26, which he describes as enforcing “a closed secularism which seeks to hinder and restrict public expressions of belief that some may find offensive.”
Again, that does not accurately capture the Court’s reasoning.
The Supreme Court rejected the proposition that state neutrality permits the state to adhere to or manifest religious belief provided it does so benevolently or inclusively. The Court instead held that the state’s duty of neutrality requires it to abstain from taking a position on matters of religious belief.
Nor did the Court accept that an official religious exercise becomes constitutionally neutral simply because it is intended to be inclusive. As the Court observed, even an ostensibly inclusive religious practice may exclude those who do not believe.
This is particularly relevant within the Canadian Armed Forces.
Religious diversity is enormously important, and CAF members must remain free to practise their religions and receive appropriate religious and spiritual care. But diversity and neutrality are not synonymous. The Bishop argues that “Open secularism means allowing diverse voices, something easily achieved in a diverse interfaith chaplaincy.” A succession of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Indigenous, humanist and other expressions may indeed demonstrate pluralism. Whether such expressions are appropriate when the state itself is speaking through an official ceremony raises a different constitutional question.
The CAF Population the Chaplaincy Serves
An important empirical reality should also inform this discussion.
In its 2021 Review of the Royal Canadian Chaplain Service, the Department of National Defence concluded that “the composition of the Chaplaincy does not reflect the diversity of the population it serves.” The review found that 39% of the CAF members surveyed reported no religious affiliation, compared with 24% of the Canadian population used for comparison. At the same time, no chaplains represented a non-religious tradition. The review therefore identified the need for the RCChS to better understand the needs of non-religious CAF members and to review recruitment standards to support recruitment from non-religious traditions, including Humanists.
The 39% figure should not be presented as a census of the entire CAF; it represents the CAF members surveyed for the review. Nevertheless, the finding is significant. It was DND’s own examination of whether the Royal Canadian Chaplain Service reflected and adequately served the population entrusted to its care.
Subsequent DND material on the Royal Canadian Chaplain Service has explicitly referred to the need to address the spiritual needs of the “growing number of CAF members who have no religious affiliation,” including through efforts to facilitate the inclusion of Humanist chaplains. As of August 2026, one Humanist chaplain is serving in the CAF, with three additional Humanist candidates preparing for CAF chaplaincy.
The Dual Role of Military Chaplains
There is another distinction that is foundational to this discussion. Military chaplains occupy a unique position within the Canadian constitutional framework. They are both representatives of their respective Spiritual/Faith Traditions and commissioned officers of the Canadian Armed Forces. In their religious or spiritual capacity, they have obligations to the communities and traditions that authorize them. As CAF officers performing official functions, however, they also act within an institution of the Government of Canada and exercise public responsibilities on behalf of the state.
The challenge raised by CAFMPI 03/26 is therefore not whether chaplains may remain faithful to their respective traditions. They can and must. The question is how their responsibilities are appropriately distinguished when their religious or spiritual role intersects with their role as representatives of a public institution.
CAFMPI 03/26 establishes that boundary in a particular and limited context. It preserves the ability of chaplains to provide religious observance, worship, sacramental ministry, pastoral care and other tradition-specific services, while requiring a different approach when they are participating in official government business at which CAF members are expected or mandated to attend.
These are not mutually exclusive commitments. Religious freedom and state neutrality can coexist. Indeed, appropriate institutional boundaries are what allow them to coexist: chaplains remain free to minister authentically within their traditions while the CAF, when acting institutionally, remains capable of serving members across the full range of religious, spiritual and non-religious worldviews.
What CAFMPI 03/26 Actually Requires
This context also makes the Bishop’s next assertion troubling. He asks, “What of the offence given to many Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs, to name a few, who do not believe that meaning, purpose, and spiritual well-being can be achieved without reference to a divine source?”
The Bishop is, of course, entitled to articulate the concerns of the Roman Catholic tradition and of those Catholics for whom he has particular pastoral responsibility. It is less clear on what basis he can speak for “many” Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs, or attributes to them a common position on this policy. No evidence is offered for that assertion, and these are themselves diverse religious traditions with differing understandings of God, the divine, spirituality, meaning and purpose. By invoking these traditions in support of his argument, the Bishop appears to enlist them rhetorically to lend broader interfaith weight to what is, at least in the statement itself, an unsubstantiated claim about their views. The effect is to suggest that his objection reflects a broad interfaith consensus rather than the position he is advancing from within his own religious tradition. If such a consensus exists, it should be demonstrated rather than presumed.
More importantly, this argument risks obscuring what CAFMPI 03/26 actually regulates. The instruction does not prohibit prayer or religious observance throughout military life. Its operating principles define a specific context. Section 4.2 provides:
“For all events connected to official government business, such as a military ceremony or commemorative event, where CAF members are expected or mandated to attend, and prayers or religious observances have been requested, chaplains … must instead offer a spiritual reflection.”
That distinction is fundamental. The policy addresses occasions connected to official government business where CAF members are expected or mandated to attend. It is in that particular setting, not in voluntary worship, pastoral care, sacramental ministry or the broader religious life of CAF members, that the state has determined that an inclusive spiritual reflection should take the place of prayer or religious observance.
Seen through this distinction between the chaplain’s two roles, the issue is not whether Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, humanists or others should be free to understand meaning and purpose through their respective worldviews. They should, and CAFMPI 03/26 does not require them to surrender those beliefs. The issue is what the state may appropriately ask a religiously and non-religiously diverse group of CAF members to participate in when their attendance is expected or mandated as part of official government business.
This becomes especially important in light of DND’s own finding that 39% of CAF members surveyed reported no religious affiliation. The religious freedom of CAF members cannot be understood solely through the experience of those who hold religious beliefs, any more than neutrality can be understood as privileging those who do not.
This is precisely where the distinction between pluralism and state neutrality becomes important. Pluralism protects and accommodates the many religious, spiritual and non-religious traditions represented within the CAF. State neutrality asks a different question: when the CAF acts institutionally and requires or expects members to be present, how does it do so without placing the authority of the state behind any one of those traditions?
The Bishop also writes that “It is freedom of religion or non-religion that the Charter protects, not freedom from selective faith traditions that one disagrees with.”
This understates an important aspect of Saguenay. The Court recognized that state-sponsored religious practices can create exclusion and interfere with freedom of conscience and religion. In Saguenay, the concern was not that the complainant was prevented from being an atheist. It was that participation in a governmental institution placed him in an environment in which the state manifested religious belief, leaving him with the alternatives of participation or withdrawal and the resulting potential for isolation and stigmatization.
Freedom of religion therefore includes more than the freedom to practise one’s own faith. It also protects individuals from governmental religious preference and coercion.
Saguenay concerned prayer at municipal council meetings. It did not specifically address military chaplaincy, operational environments, Remembrance Day ceremonies, commemorations or the distinctive responsibilities of CAF chaplains. CAFMPI 03/26 represents the CAF’s application of the principles of state neutrality to these particular military settings.
The central principle emerging from Saguenay is not that government should provide opportunities for competing religious and non-religious beliefs to be expressed through official state functions. It is that the state must remain neutral among them.
Religious Canadians retain their freedom of religion. Canadians who are humanist, atheist, agnostic or otherwise non-religious retain their freedom of conscience and belief. Chaplains continue to serve members according to their respective Spiritual/Faith Traditions. Protecting these freedoms together, rather than setting one against another, is something to be celebrated.
The Consultation That Took Place
Finally, I must also address the Bishop’s characterization of the process leading to CAFMPI 03/26. He writes that military and political authorities “consistently refused to have a substantive dialogue,” that requests for meetings were “uniformly declined for several years,” and that suggestions from religious leaders were “never openly discussed.”
Those assertions are simply false. This issue has been the subject of substantive discussion and consultation for approximately three years. The Bishop participated in that process, as did I and other representatives of the Spiritual/Faith Traditions represented within the ICCMC and beyond. There were differing and strongly held views throughout that process, and ultimately not everyone achieved the outcome they advocated for.
Disagreement with the outcome does not mean that substantive dialogue did not occur. Nor does the fact that one’s recommendations were not ultimately adopted mean that they were not heard or considered. Consultation does not require consensus, and collaboration does not give any participant or Spiritual/Faith Tradition a veto over the eventual policy decision.
The goal for the Canadian Armed Forces is to respect the religious freedom and freedom of conscience of all its members while recognizing that, when it speaks institutionally, the state occupies a fundamentally different position from the individuals it serves. Military chaplains necessarily inhabit both of these realities. CAFMPI 03/26 does not require them to choose between them; it establishes appropriate boundaries for those circumstances in which their responsibilities as representatives of a Spiritual/Faith Tradition intersect with their responsibilities as officers acting within a public institution.
That is not hostility toward religion, nor is neutrality another word for atheism. Religious freedom and state neutrality are not competing principles in a zero-sum contest. Properly understood, each helps make the other possible. CAFMPI 03/26 seeks to preserve that balance in a Canadian Armed Forces whose members reflect a much broader range of religious, spiritual and non-religious worldviews than the military chaplaincy was historically structured to serve.
Martin Frith, M.Div., AHC
ICCMC Representative for Humanism
President, Humanist Canada