Yes, he should undoubtedly lose his job. Let him carry out his 30 scheduled marriages and then package him off. His job is to marry people and his employer has made it clear that refusal is out of the question. So his options are 1) find another career that doesn't involve marrying gays, or 2) suck it up and start marrying gays. Maybe when he started, gay marriage wasn't on the radar, but it certainly is now, and he has a paid obligation to serve the people of his province. If he can't fulfil it, whether by choice or incapacity, he needs to go.

If he were a priest or some sort of religious official, then perhaps his refusal might carry some other merit, but as a public servant, he had better well do what his mandarin bosses tell him to. You can't cherry-pick the aspects of the job you enjoy, and ignore the ones you find unpleasant.

I was thinking about this very thing just the other day. If I am going to the courthouse (or "city hall") to get my marriage solemnized, do I really care which clerk mumbles a few words and signs the document? So if the first clerk I go to says: "I have a dentist's appointment right now therefore I will get my trusty assistant to perform this administrative function for you", is that any different to me than if he says: "I don't like you based on my religious beliefs and therefore I won't perform this administrative function for you." Then I say: "What about your trusty assistant?" and then he says: "Yeah, he doesn't mind, you can get him to do it." In other words, if Nichols won't do something based on his religious belief, does he really have to lose his job? Cannot his employer accommodate his religious belief and still provide the service to the public that the law requires i.e. get some other clerk to mumble to words and sign the license? I think human rights legislation in most provinces calls for this kind of accommodation as well as compromise. I mean, can't we use commonn sense anymore? Why can't we be rational instead of politicizing everything and polarizing debate?

I don't agree with Nichols opinion, but I think the point is that the state must provide marriage licenses to those who ask for one.

I agree with both of you in a way. The office is not the person and the obligation is the state's not the person. But...when you take that office I trust you take an oath to uphold the law.

I've been mulling this over for a while (well, since you posted this an hour ago). My initial thought is that he should lose his job: your morality is what you do on your own time (barring issues of illegality and criminal acts and so forth).

However ... the Canadian state has gone moderately far out of its way to satisify the religious needs of its citizens, carving our privledges not available to Joe or Jane Anyone. For example, very religious Muslim women do not need to show their faces for TTC pases; Sikhs can wear turbans in the RCMP, and so forth. These are considered reasonable accomodations.

So, if another person is available to do the job, and the job itself is a pretty infrequent event, it would be hard to argue that this is not a reasonable accomodation.

I don't see it as politicising the debate. I am sympathetic to Nichols' situation but it's purely a question of capability. If you take an oath to the Crown to uphold the law and execute certain administrative functions, then you have a responsibility to do so. If I refused to do I.T. work for gay employees (as a private-sector employee), how long do you think I would last? Not very, and rightfully so. I'm paid to do a job, and if at any point my ethics or standards are compromised, then the onus is on me to find more agreeable work.

If Nichols is allowed to carry on like this, at some point lazy human nature is going to take over, and we will become accustomed to larger and larger chunks of people refusing to do certain kinds of work for certain kinds of people (i.e. straights refusing to marry gays, and possibly gays refusing to marry straights). Being the government, these accomodations will at some point become enshrined in a collective bargaining agreement. Then we will end up hiring more people to do the same marriage commissioner job so as not to endanger the task-impaired who refuse to do those certain kinds of work.

I don't want to hire lazy bastards or overly Pharisaical ones to do part of the Crown's work, part of the time. I want a non-bloated civil service that is capable of serving all Canadians, all the time. Do you damn job and do it well, or get shoved aside by those who can. That's the law of the market, right? =)

Yes but this is not the market (and I am being saucy here) as it is an appointment in the 17th century sense of it - it is an officer. I don't want to pull up the Alberta <i>Justices of the Peace Act</i> but it would be interesting to know if this is an "appointment at pleasure" allowing that sort of firing with or without cause.

I should clarify further: I think the parties involved in the story are politicizing the issue (not any commenters here) and I think Nichols is at least as guilty of this as anyone else. For one thing, if he is 69 years old and the rules of his job have changed, maybe he should just quietly retire anyway. Why the phony confrontation? Just because he won't perform the function, it doesn't mean that same-sex couples won't get married. As I said, surely there is another clerk down the hall that can do it. I agree that all these clerks are just performing a function that is part of there job and if they can't or won't do it, maybe they should leave or be fired. I think the wrinkle is that the rules have changed and it is a rule that (apparently) relates to the employee's religious beliefs. I think it could be accommodated. There is no getting away from the state's duty to issue licenses to same sex couples, though, whether Nichols likes it or not. This situation could have been handled differently, without the politics. But then, the whole issue could have been handled differently by separating the traditional idea of church marriage from the idea of state-sanctioned marriage (civil union licenses). The state should issue civil marriage licences and call it a different name. Churches could still have opposite sex marriages and other churches could have same sex marriages if they want. The civil marriage license shouldn't even bother with gender, just two people over the age of 18. Then any 2 people could have a marriage and define it anyway they want, those people would qualify for a a civil marriage licence and then those that didn't want to "marry" could also obtain a civil marriage license.

I think it is pretty simple. If it is legal in Saskatchewan then government employees should be required to perform their duties as per the law same as per other civil servants in other categories. You can't allow government employees the option of discrimination. If he doesn't want to perform SSM in Sask as a civil servant then he should not perform any at all.

I would need to know if the person is in the civil service or an appointee to an office before I would be able to respond. As a "Commissioner" that is not clear to me.

As Darcey says, in today's climate, it seems "pretty simple". Without justifying his dismissal, what if he was the Manager of a Public Housing Complex in Saskatchewan and refused to provide/accept applications to/from gay couples, instead of refusing to provide this other "public service"?

To take up Hans last point, would it not be more interesting if he was the first Sask. Muslim or Sikh "commissioner" to refuse this service on religious grounds?

The concept of marriage is very tied up with the concept of religion, for most religious people! Thus, refusing to marry a gay a couple is not exactly analogous to refuse handing out a fishing license.

Are you all comfortable with firing/dismissing/not-hiring persons opposed to gay marriage if it meant no Muslims or Sikhs could work in this capacity in, say, Toronto? Don't forget that no one is really being inconvienced here: the application is just being processed by the next person in the queue.

But for the same reason could I not have difficulty in issuing a marriage sertificate at all if I was a person of faith as a civil marriage itself is blasphamy.

Perhaps, though that would be a high percentage case, wouldn't it? The question for me is what would be a reasonable accomodation: it's hard to see how in some cases (the TTC passes example) it's acceptable and then to say this particular case is totally unacceptable.

I'm arguing for consistency here; I'm very dubious about religious exemptions in general.

<BLOCKQUOTE>"Are you all comfortable with firing/dismissing/not-hiring persons opposed to gay marriage if it meant no Muslims or Sikhs could work in this capacity in, say, Toronto? Don't forget that no one is really being inconvienced here: the application is just being processed by the next person in the queue."</BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't think the test should be inconvenience, necessarily. The test ought to be the fitness of the civil servant to perform all the functions of their job/office. If they can't, then the correct answer is seeya later. In fact I am okay with axing all civil servants of any religion, ethnicity, creed, sex, gender and orientation who refuse to execute their duties in part or in full. Religious convictions are fine, but it's not the job of the public service to craft jobs so that every person of every possible creed can find employment there. Especially when members of some religions are self-selecting themselves out of the applicant pool by refusing to carry out some duties. If a public servant is no longer willing to faithfully serve, then he ought not to be drawing a paycheck, whether or not there are 50 others in the same office who are willing to do it for him.

If one's beliefs interfere with the execution of his duty then I suggest it behooves him to be more sensible in his job choices. Or, if the job description changes mid-career and one finds it icky, like Mr. Nichols, maybe the smart thing to do is accept a package and not try to hang on for dear life as if it were a hereditary peerage.

A marriage commissioner is a creation of Saskatchewan's <i>Marriages Act</i> at section 3(e). Section 8(1) states:<blockquote class="smalltext">The Minister may appoint adult persons resident in Alberta as marriage commissioners for Alberta or any district of Alberta for terms of 5 years or less."</blockquote>Interestingly at section 30, marriage commissioner's may have forms of selectivity set out in their appointment:<blockquote class="smalltext">The authority of a marriage commissioner to solemnize marriage may be limited to cases where the parties to the intended marriage belong, or one of them belongs, to a certain creed or nationality, or it may include all cases where either of the parties objects to being or does not desire to be married by any of the persons enumerated in clauses 3(a), (b), (c) and (d).</blockquote>So could you actually have a commissioner appointed in Saskatchewan to the "creed" of inclusivity? <p>And another key point is found in section 19 of Saskatchewan's Interpretation Act:<blockquote class="smalltext">every public officer appointed before or after the commencement of this Act holds office during pleasure only, unless a contrary intention is expressed in:<br>a) the enactment by or pursuant to which he or she is appointed; or<br>(b) the public officer's commission or appointment.</blockquote>At pleasure means what it says. You are in the office for as long as I want you in the office. It does not appear that a marriage commissioner is an employee under the <i>Public Service Act</i> but a specific appointment.

More on the concept of "at pleasure" (which is distinct from the public service) from the 1990 Supreme Court of Canada case <i>Knight</i> v. <i>Indian Head School Division No. 19</i>, [1990] 1 S.C.R. 653:<blockquote class="smalltext">...the powers exercised by the Board are delegated statutory powers which should be put only to legitimate use. Unlike "pure master and servant" relationships, the public has an interest in the proper use of delegated power by administrative bodies. The fact that an office holder could be dismissed for cause or at pleasure would not warrant a distinction with regard to the existence of a duty to act fairly, since in both cases statutory powers are exercised. It is not necessary, in this respect, to characterize the employment so that it fits into one or the other of those classes. The distinction, however, is not obsolete in all respects. In the case of an office held at pleasure, even after the giving of reasons and the granting of a hearing, the employer's mere displeasure is still justification enough to validly terminate the employment.</blockquote>One wonders what the injunction would be based on.

Has anyone tested the constitutional limits of "at pleasure"? For example, if someone came into an office and dismissed all (or most) the Asians serving at pleasure, would we have an issue. (Especially if they _didn't_ explicitly say the underlying reason, even though it is quite apparent from the action itself).

I may be missing the point here, somewhere. So he's an officer, as distinct from a civil servant. He's still behaving poorly, and definitely at odds with the wishes of the powers that be -- who presumably control the duration of his "at pleasure" stay.

Are we saying that he ought not to receive a kick in the ass, because he came into the job differently than John Doe civil servant?

My point is only that there would be little fight available were he to be booted and attempt a lawsuit. I recall I was involved with a case about one who sought legal recourse for losing an appointment. I think that it was a thin file.

Heh. Well presumably the son will have pity and not charge the old man for all the useless paper-shuffling and hand-wringing. And possibly, in the best of all circumstances, he might give his dad advice similar to yours, and dissuade him from the whole mess.