CTV News and Nanaimo News reported yesterday on the opening of a trial in Nanaimo, British Columbia in a suit against a school district because of a classroom demonstration of a Nuu-chah-nulth smudging ceremony. Plaintiff, the mother of a child in the elementary school classroom where the demonstration was carried out in 2015, says that the exercise violated her daughter’s rights. The daughter asked to leave the room, but her teacher told her that this would be rude and that she must stay in class and participate. The lawyer filing the case said: “We believe that the government cannot compel citizens to participate in supernatural or religious ceremonies.”
