Canadian Politics Today

Sounds suspiciously like the Edmonton area band that "discovered" during construction around the Walterdale bridge that the land was actually a sacred burial ground and that bridge construction would have to be put on hold until the spirits of their ancestors could be appeased with a multi-million dollar payment.

 -k

I thought you leaned towards giving people the benefit of the doubt.

My point is there is a case to be made that these particular beliefs are opportunistic creations. *IF* the court had decided to assess the "sincerity" of the beliefs as a way to determine if the rights of others should be trampled in order to protect these beliefs it is possible the court was have decided that the natives were 'making crap up' and their beliefs did not deserve protection in this case. However, the court unequivocally said it could not/should not get into the business of determining the "sincerity" of beliefs.

I'm trying to understand what 'assessing the merits of religious beliefs' has to do with this though.  Does that mean assessing whether they're real or not ?  Well, none of them are real.

Trying to determine whether a stated belief is a sincere belief or an opportunistic creation intended to gain political or economic advantage. For example, what would be your reaction we were neighbors and I went to court and argued that you could no longer use your house because I had a vision of a "flying spaghetti monster" that said that you living in the house was harming it? I assume you would expect the court to dismiss the claim with prejudice but it is logically not far from what the natives were asking the court to do. If the court had accepted the principal that beliefs in imaginary things are sufficient to justify taking away the rights of others then it would have to either accept my claim at face value and remove you from your house or it would have to assess my beliefs to determine if they were worthy of special protection before ruling. The court instead said, I am free to believe whatever I want but the government is not obligated to impose hardship on others to protect the imaginary things I believe in. This court did the only sensible thing it could have done.

Why would sincerity of beliefs matter?  Lots of people out there sincerely believe lots of absolute rubbish.

In terms of First Nations, I believe the sincerity of belief is also based on evidence that the belief is long-standing and is a fundamental asoect of their history and culture.

In this example, the "spirit bear" needing that particular piece of land was a new "revelation" which is why I believe the natives in this case were creating beliefs to manipulate the system.

I suspect the SCC also realized that any attempt to rank beliefs by longevity or number of adherents would open up claims of discrimination and unfairness. Refusing to assess "sincerity" avoids these conflicts.

Yes, but why would the sincerity of belief affect, or be allowed to affect, others.

I see your point about the word "sincerity" but that is the term the SCC used to describe how the courts would have to assess the "worthiness" of a religious belief in order determine if it had more value than the rights of the people who would be affected by a court ruling to "protect" the object of a belief. The exact meaning of the word is not that important since the court decided it protecting the objects of beliefs is not a constitutional requirement.