Reasonable Accommodation: Managing Religious Diversity

Often when a religious minority challenges mainstream Canadian customs, the phrase “reasonable accommodation” and its boundaries are at the centre of the ensuing debate. But what exactly is reasonable accommodation? Does it achieve its goal of integrating the rights of religious minorities with those of mainstream society – or does it emphasize inequality?

Reasonable Accommodation features eight interdisciplinary essays addressing how reasonable accommodation is defined within Canada and abroad through law and public discourse. These probing explorations based on empirical studies and legal cases touch on current hot-button topics such as women’s right to wear the niqab in public, religious diversity in prisons, and accommodating sexual diversity. Woven through the chapters are questions and commentary about whether there really is a religious majority in Canada, how the idea of “shared values” obscures debate, and how tolerating religious differences simply isn’t enough to guarantee equality. Reasonable Accommodation provides a much-needed critical assessment of this phrase and theorizes religious diversity and freedom of religion beyond the meaning of “tolerance” as it sometimes implies.

Combining perspectives from the fields of law, religious studies, political science, philosophy and sociology, Reasonable Accommodation is a must-read for professors, researchers, students and policy-makers interested in religion and multiculturalism in Canada.