{"id":29039,"date":"2020-05-04T20:54:21","date_gmt":"2020-05-05T00:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/?p=29039"},"modified":"2020-05-12T13:19:57","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T17:19:57","slug":"covid-19-a-call-to-include-religious-organizations-in-re-opening-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/legal\/2020\/05\/04\/covid-19-a-call-to-include-religious-organizations-in-re-opening-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19: A Call to Include Religious Organizations in Re-Opening Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"
This entry is part 24 of 45 in the series COVID-19<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n
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Provinces across Canada are beginning to ease restrictions<\/a>, lift lockdowns and take steps to restore economic, social and public activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CCCC, Christian Legal Fellowship<\/a> and The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada<\/a>, have written a joint letter to Ontario\u2019s Premier Doug Ford, calling for religious organizations to be part of that province’s re-opening plan. Each organization has made themselves available for consultation to ensure the concerns, needs and importance of religious organizations are not forgotten. In Ontario\u2019s Framework for Reopening Our Province<\/a>, the government commits to holding discussions with a lengthy list of stakeholders; however, religious organizations and churches area not directly included, despite the significant benefit they provide to their communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this respect, as we enter the next stage of this pandemic, and the government begins to re-open certain services, we would welcome the opportunity to consult with you about how to support religious communities and charities, who can make important and essential contributions to our province during this time. We note that your government recently announced that it will be consulting with sectors impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak, but faith communities were not specifically included in its list of stakeholders. We ask you to prioritize support, increased flexibility, and accommodation for religious communities seeking to serve Ontarians. We are concerned that an ongoing exclusion of religious communities such as churches from the province\u2019s list of \u201cessential\u201d services, especially for an extended period, may have a disproportionate burden on many individuals and families, at a time when they are most in need of the unique and vital support that their faith leaders and communities can provide.  <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Our full joint letter is available here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n