From: Ashu M. G. Solo [mailto:amgsolo@mavericktechnologies.us]
Sent: Monday, February 25, 2013 10:56 PM
To: amgsolo@mavericktechnologies.us
Subject: MEDIA ALERT: Executive Committee retains Christmas messages on buses and I will proceed with my civil rights complaint to the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission
Sent: Monday, February 25, 2013 10:56 PM
To: amgsolo@mavericktechnologies.us
Subject: MEDIA ALERT: Executive Committee retains Christmas messages on buses and I will proceed with my civil rights complaint to the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission
Dear Media,
The City of Saskatoon’s Executive Committee, which is
composed of the mayor and city councillors, is retaining the Christmas messages
on buses and not doing anything about including messages for holidays from
other religions. Therefore, I will proceed with a complaint to the
Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission. I will file the civil rights
complaint on Monday, March 4, 2013.
March is the City of Saskatoon’s Cultural Diversity and Race
Relations Month. By filing the complaint in March, this will highlight
the hypocrisy of the City of Saskatoon about respecting cultural
diversity. On one hand, they spend a lot of money on events promoting
respect for cultural diversity. On the other hand, they retain Christmas messages
on buses and won’t even include holiday messages for any of the other over
10,000 religions. Government actions like this make people mistakenly think that
this is a Christian city and Christian country.
The Executive Committee had referred this issue to the
Cultural Diversity and Race Relations Committee. Representatives on the
Cultural Diversity and Race Relations Committee had really different views
about what to do regarding my complaint. They couldn’t agree on a
recommendation for the Executive Committee. Therefore, the Cultural
Diversity and Race Relations Committee decided to take no action on my
complaint and simply send their comments from their last meeting to the
Executive Committee, so the Executive Committee can make a more informed
decision. Comments from the last meeting of the Cultural Diversity and
Race Relations Committee can be seen in an advisory committee report in the
Executive Committee agenda at
http://www.saskatoon.ca/DEPARTMENTS/City%20Clerks%20Office/Boards%20and%20Committees/agendasandminutes/Documents/agendas_2013/a_ex_250213.pdf.
Note that the advisory committee report from the Cultural Diversity and Race
Relations Committee does not include comments from their deliberations during a
private retreat in January 2013. The Executive Committee decided to
simply receive this advisory committee report and not take any further actions
on my complaint.
I think the Executive Committee caved in to the public
backlash. I think they didn’t consider including messages for holidays
from other religions because they realized that it’s impossible to cover them
all. It’s impossible because there are over 10,000 religions, 150 of
which have one million or more followers. This doesn’t include branches
of each religion. These numerous religions were documented by David Barrett, as can be seen at www.adherents.com/misc/WCE.html.
I’m going to see if I can amalgamate my prayer recitation
complaint and Christmas message complaint into one case, which will keep costs
down. I believe that I can do this because both have to do with religious
discrimination and both are against the City of Saskatoon, but the Saskatchewan
Human Rights Commission will determine if the complaints can be amalgamated
into one case. Because I’m attempting to amalgamate the Christmas message
complaint and prayer recitation complaint into one case, this will delay the
Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission from proceeding to mediation with the
prayer recitation complaint and will delay me from giving them authorization to
do so by signing their form.
Best regards,
Ashu M. G. Solo