Canada court rejects mother’s lawsuit to ban Indigenous ceremony at children’s school

A Canadian court has again rejected claims from a mother that Indigenous cultural events at her children's school infringed on their religious freedoms, ordering her to pay costs after revelations her lawsuit was secretly funded by a Christian activist organization.

Candice Servatius, an evangelical Protestant, complained in 2016 after an Elder performed a smudging demonstration at her children's school in the western British Columbia town of Port Alberni. A hoop dancer also said a prayer while performing at a school assembly.

Ahead of the event, parents received a letter advising them that students would participate by holding a cedar branch to "feel the bristles..to remind them that they are alive and well" and that smoke from sage would be fanned to "cleanse" the students and classroom. When Servatius went to the school, she found out that the ceremony had already taken place.

Despite Servatius's claim that "her children were forced to participate in a religious ceremony", the British Columbia supreme court ruled against her in 2020. Justice Douglas Thompson concluded the events were meant to teach students about Indigenous culture and attendance wasn't mandatory.

In his ruling, Thompson also found that while the students observed a smudging ceremony and hoop dance, "they did not hold cedar branches and were not smudged or otherwise cleansed".

This week, an appeals court agreed with the lower court, calling it "uncontroversial" that public educational institutions like schools would be involved in reconciliation efforts with Indigenous communities. The school is located within the traditional Nuu-chah-nulth territory and nearly one-third of the students in the school district are Indigenous, according to the British Columbia court of appeal.

"Significant efforts have been made to redress the historic legacy of schools being an unsafe place for Indigenous children and to help create better outcomes for Indigenous students," wrote justice Susan Griffin.

She also pointed to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the province three years ago, which calls for that Indigenous culture and tradition to be reflected in the province's schools.

When he ruled in 2020, justice Thompson didn't compel Servatius to pay costs, believing her family lacked the funds to compensate the school district for the litigation.

But after she challenged the decision, the appeals court learned that her case was being funded by the Calgary-based Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF).

Justice Griffin wrote the revelations of the group secretly funding Servatius "highlights the importance of transparency as to who is the real party funding the litigation" and concluding that the JCCF's role "insulated" Servatius from the costs associated with "wasting judicial resources on minor complaints that would not usually justify a lawsuit".

The appeals court has ordered Servatius to pay the school district's costs - both for the supreme court and appeal court hearings.