Baranyai: Employees face tough choices when job, beliefs conflict

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Ideally, and whenever possible, people should not be forced to participate in activities deeply at odds with their conscience or religious beliefs. It’s a lot to ask. On the other hand, sometimes that’s what the job – or the law – requires.

A municipal clerk may oppose marriage equality, for example, but their convictions don’t entitle them to discriminate against the public they serve. We have more empathy for doctors who find prescribing lethal drugs for medical assistance in dying (MAiD) so contrary to their beliefs they must refer their patient to another care provider.

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Our compassion for conscientious objectors is influenced by changing social values, and how effectively people who need their services are accommodated. Now, thanks to inflammatory political advertising, some mail carriers are joining their ranks.

This is the conundrum unfolding in St. John, N.B., where Canada Post worker Shannon Aitchison was suspended when she refused to deliver flyers spreading misinformation about trans youth. Some of Aitchison’s colleagues took time off to avoid distributing the offending material. Their dilemma has sparked renewed debate on the tension between freedom of speech and protecting human dignity.

The flyers were created by Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), a Hamilton-based anti-abortion group that registered as a third-party advertiser with Elections New Brunswick. The province goes to the polls on Oct. 21. CLC has lent its full-throated support to Conservative policies that have rolled back protections for gender non-conforming students, which a CLC blog referred to grotesquely as “LGBT grooming.”

“This is the third flyer in a series that is all attacking trans people. It’s lies and misinformation,” Aitchison told CBC’s Hadeel Ibrahim. The flyer calls on the province to “ban child sex-change,” although children are not eligible for gender-affirming surgery. As the mother of a trans adult, Aitchison also was upset to read “‘God doesn’t make mistakes’ … so you’re telling me my child is a mistake?”

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New Brunswick once was hailed for its evidence-based policies creating safer, more inclusive learning environments. When Policy 713 was introduced in 2020, schools had to obtain students’ consent before discussing their gender identity with their parents.

Changes under Progressive Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs turned those rules inside out. Teachers are no longer permitted even to acknowledge the preferred name of a student younger than 16 without explicit parental consent. In practical terms, non-conforming kids who don’t feel ready to be “out” at home are now misgendered all day in front of their peers, making school the opposite of a safe space.

Higgs bulled through the changes despite strong objections within his own government, ministerial resignations, and a warning from New Brunswick’s child and youth advocate. It has proved a popular wedge issue, inspiring even more extreme legislation in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Canada Post has rules about what can and can’t be mailed; exceptions to what it accepts are limited and regulated. Spokesperson Valerie Chartrand has clarified delivery is not an endorsement: “Our important and longstanding role to deliver the country’s mail should not be seen as tolerance or support for the contents of any mailing.”

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In August, the Crown corporation received a letter from a lawyer for CLC warning its flyers “merely” comment on provincial policy, and “constitute political expression which lies at the core of the constitutional guarantee of free expression.”

It’s not the first time Canada Post has grappled with controversy. In 2014, the corporation apologized to Newfoundlanders for delivering homophobic pamphlets to thousands of Happy Valley-Goose Bay residents.

“You have to stand up for what you believe in,” Aitchison told CBC. “I believe that I’ve done the right thing. I can sleep at night.”

write.robin@baranyai.ca

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