how do canadians feel about that? do canadians support that idea?
it would strike me as rather blatantly in opposition to how s 2(a) of the constitution has been interpreted in common law, which is primarily as the right to state secularism (in the french revolutionary context rather than the american revolutionary context). the right to freedom of conscience in canada has been repeatedly interpreted by the court to mean that atheists have the right to be free from religion. prayer rooms in federal workplaces would be inconsistent with that constitutional right and should be abolished for that reason.
upon googling the issue, i'm realizing that a lot of documents are referring to a "duty to accommodate" that does not actually exist in law. i am not aware of any legislation anywhere in canada that upholds the idea of a "duty to accommodate". i am aware of some case law that indicates that employers are expected to be reasonable in dealing with religious requests. in the context of religious muslim employees, i don't think the case law says anything more than that employers are required to allow for a 15 minute break every 2 hours, which is established in labour law as the "smoke break". asking for more than that would generate unnecessary costs for the business, which would be correctly seen as undue hardship. employers should be reasonably expected to not hire employees that would force them to endure extra costs and the courts should uphold their rights to do that and i think they actually have. expecting employers to incur costs to hire religious people is patently unreasonable and i don't think the courts in canada have ever done that. court cases to my knowledge have been about more aggressive forms of interference.
i should point out that i'm also in support of banning all forms of public prayer.
but the legal requirements here should be that employers are forbidden from doing anything that prevents muslims from praying on their 15 minute breaks, rather than they're required to incur costs and actively make spaces for them to do so, which is the legal definition of undue hardship.
it does not appear as though the federal government was forced to do this by court order. that was what i was looking for and it doesn't seem to exist. this would rather appear to be a choice made by the government to infringe on s. 2a atheist rights (as established in common law), and a government choosing to behave in ways that the courts would consider to be "undue hardship", in terms of what the rights of religious people are, if challenged in a court process. the courts would not order this. for that reason, secularists should seek a court order to shut the prayer rooms in federal offices down under existing common law precedent upholding a separation of church and state and under the s. 2a right of atheists to be free from religion at work.