{"id":711903,"date":"2026-06-03T08:52:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T08:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/711903\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T08:52:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T08:52:27","slug":"after-pope-slams-ai-can-employees-request-religious-ai-exemptions-at-work-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/711903\/","title":{"rendered":"After Pope slams AI, can employees request religious AI exemptions at work? – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some Canadians may have a case for requesting religious exemptions from artificial intelligence<\/a> usage in the workplace, following formal Catholic Church warnings from Pope Leo XIV<\/a> about the technology.<\/p>\n

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But experts caution that requesting religious exemptions is not simple, and the question of where reasonable accommodation lies with an emerging and largely unregulated technology is still murky.<\/p>\n

The Pope\u2019s sweeping manifesto calls for the robust regulation of artificial intelligence, warning in his 42,300-word encyclical letter<\/a> that \u201ctechnology is not simply a tool.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it becomes the standard by which everything is judged, it begins to dictate what matters and what can be discarded, reducing creation to an object of exploitation and human beings to mere cogs in a system driven toward ever greater efficiency,\u201d the Pope said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is needed is a more active political involvement that is capable of slowing things down when everything is accelerating,\u201d Pope Leo said in the text, entitled Magnifica Humanitas, or Magnificent \u200bHumanity.<\/p>\n

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He also states there is a \u201csubtler danger\u201d for AI usage, calling for \u201crobust legal frameworks, independent oversight, informed users and a political system that does not abdicate its \u200bresponsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leo also called upon AI developers to work for the common good rather than profit.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust as the creator of an artistic or literary work must consider the values it conveys, so developers are called to embed values in their projects with due seriousness: with transparency, responsibility toward affected communities and careful attention to ensuring that what is being cultivated is a genuine good.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOttawa to unveil \u2018refreshed\u2019 AI strategy\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Mark Carney \u2014 who is a practising Catholic \u2014 is poised to reveal his government\u2019s long-awaited AI strategy this week following repeated delays.<\/p>\n

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He discussed the topic of artificial intelligence with Pope Leo on Friday, with Carney \u201cwelcoming the Pope\u2019s leadership in this field.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey discussed the imperative that AI must serve humanity, beginning with the protection of the individual. Prime Minister Carney expressed Canada\u2019s desire to lead internationally on responsible AI and tools to benefit the global community,\u201d the Prime Minister\u2019s Office said in a readout of the call.<\/p>\n

The federal government is expected to announce its long-awaited national AI strategy this week.<\/p>\n

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, Canada\u2019s national assembly of the bishops of the Catholic Church, also described the Pope\u2019s letter by saying it \u201cplaces the dignity of the human person at the centre as the criteria for guiding technical progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Church\u2019s social teaching accompanies these transformations, pointing to the common good, solidarity and subsidiarity as the fundamental benchmarks for understanding and interpreting the transformation currently underway,\u201d according to the assembly\u2019s media release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tCan employees now refuse to use AI?\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Formal religious writings on the subject might leave some Canadians wondering whether they can seek a religious exemption from using artificial intelligence in their jobs.<\/p>\n

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The Canadian Human Rights Act<\/a> aims to \u201cextent the laws in Canada that proscribe discrimination,\u201d while the Ontario Human Rights Code<\/a> is a statute that states that \u201cevery person has a right to equal treatment with respect to the occupancy of accommodation, without discrimination because of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, family status, disability or the receipt of public assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christopher Achkar, a managing partner at Achkar Law, states that those laws could potentially be cited by Canadian employees in a request for religious accommodation.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmployees can cite those religious reasons as reasons to be accommodated and not have to use AI,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause these two pieces of legislation protect against discrimination on the basis of those grounds, employers have to accommodate those employees when they cite that they are part of those groups that subscribe to those beliefs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there are religious groups, for example, and in this case not using AI for religious reasons, then the code protects them from being terminated, discriminated against or treated differently or adversely because of these reasons, so employers have to accommodate.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Puneet Tiwari, an employment lawyer and partner of Leavitt LLP, said this applies to an employer unless there is \u201cundue hardship.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This refers to the point at which an employer is no longer legally required to accommodate an employee.<\/p>\n

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In Canadian employment law, employers must accommodate employees to this point \u2014 not to the point of inconvenience, preference or minor disruption.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no blanket answer. It has to be taken in on a case-by-case basis,\u201d Tiwari said.<\/p>\n

Aaron Zaltzman, an associate with Whitten & Lublin Employment Lawyers, said that \u201cif it is a religious belief, then the employee would be entitled to reasonable accommodation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually think the hardest hurdle there would be proving that it\u2019s a religious belief,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI is obviously not something that was contemplated when the Torah or the Bible or most current religious texts for mainstream religions were written. So, the question of whether objections to AI as a religious belief is very up to interpretation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Achkar also stated that if \u201cone employee out of 50 [employees] who cites religion as a reason not to use AI, then the employer will have a harder time saying no to that employee and they would have to accommodate them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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He also added that in the future, there could be adjustments to laws already in place to meet these needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is certainly an evolving field, and it has to have effects on the existing laws in place, so I definitely see that coming into force within different acts around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tiwari said accommodation \u201cis a two-way street.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the employer and the employee can engage in a dialogue to see, \u2018Hey, are there any solutions?’\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2:09
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHow AI implementation impacts job numbers\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tHow do Canadians feel about AI?\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

New data from the released Tuesday found two-thirds of Canadians (68 per cent) say it is government\u2019s place to heavily regulate AI and tech companies, even if doing so slows development.<\/p>\n

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However, three-quarters (74 per cent) doubt any government is truly equipped to keep pace with the technology.<\/p>\n

In addition, the poll found that just one in six (16 per cent) of Canadians would leave it to tech companies to self-regulate.<\/p>\n

\u2014 with files from Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some Canadians may have a case for requesting religious exemptions from artificial intelligence usage in the workplace, following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,76712,61,3275],"class_list":["post-711903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-pope-leo-xiv","tag-technology","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}