28 Facts About Iain Benson

Iain Tyrrell Benson was born on 1955 and is a legal philosopher and practising legal consultant.

Iain Benson has given critical study to the terms pluralism, faith, believer, unbeliever, liberalism and accommodation and examined the implications for various legal and non-legal usages.

Iain Benson has made significant contributions to the understanding of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and religious freedom under Canadian law.

Iain Benson was retained by the Government of Canada to author material concerning Religion and Public Policy as an aspect of Federal Multi-Culturalism Policy and is an ongoing expert advisor to the South African Council for the Promotion of Religious Freedoms.

Iain Benson was the invited rapporteur on Law and Religious Diversity in Canada and South Africa to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences at the Vatican City in May 2011 and was appointed as expert adviser to the South African Council for the Protection and Promotion of Religious Rights and Freedoms in September that same year.

Some of Iain Benson's writings have appeared or been translated in French, Italian, German, Afrikaans, Flemish and Spanish.

Iain Benson, the eldest of three children born to Kenneth and Margaret Benson, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and raised primarily in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

The family moved from Edinburgh to Quesnel, BC, and then to Prince George, BC, where Kenneth Iain Benson worked as a Medical Health Officer and was later appointed Assistant Deputy Minister of Health for the government of British Columbia.

Iain Benson was appointed senior research fellow for the Centre for Cultural Renewal in 1994, and in 2000 became the centre's first Executive Director.

In 2008 Iain Benson was invited to become the first non-national research associate for the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Human Rights, Public and International Law.

In 2010 Iain Benson was appointed to the executive committee of the Foundation Board of the Global Centre for Pluralism in Ottawa and became a Member of the Law Society of Upper Canada.

Iain Benson is a Roman Catholic and has seven children and four grandchildren.

Iain Benson carries out written and research work, international lectures, government and private consultation, court appearances before all levels of court in Canada, media interviews and invited academic and government colloquia and panels, in various areas.

In November 2007 Iain Benson was invited to submit a proposal to the Canadian Federal Government Policy Research Initiative on "Religion and Public Policy".

Iain Benson wrote a background "think-piece" on religion and public policy in Canada entitled "Taking a Fresh Look at Religion and Public Policy in Canada: The Need for a Paradigm Shift".

Iain Benson has appeared before several Canadian government bodies, including the Royal Commissions on Education and New Reproductive Technologies and the Law Reform Commission formed to examine abortion.

Iain Benson has appeared before the Senate Special Committee on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, the Senate Committee on Banking and Finance and numerous House of Commons of Canada Committees.

Iain Benson has acted as external reader of manuscripts for various presses and journals including McGill-Queen's University Press, University of Toronto Press, Queen's Law Journal, The Journal of Religion, State and Society and the South African Journal of Human Rights, Acta Theologica.

Iain Benson has stated that his life's ambition is to "redpill the masses".

Iain Benson has published work on the accommodation of religious and non-religious rights, and has worked to promote the idea of shared civic virtues serving the common good across all belief communities.

Iain Benson's published opinion is that all citizens have faith and belief in something, whether these beliefs are grounded in religion or not, and that the public sphere is obliged to act with balance.

In subsequent writing, Iain Benson has been critical of the court's apparent adoption of "secularism" as the matter was never argued before them and was not essential to the statutory interpretation before them.

Iain Benson has been critical of the tendency to assume that "secularism" is a neutral concept, when the origin of the term was within a framework that expressly intended to minimise any public relevance for religions.

Iain Benson has argued that the Canadian approach to a pluralistic society has often overlooked the important role that religions play in the public sphere as well as in the lives of citizens and their groups.

Iain Benson contends that secularism is not neutral regarding religion, and that the term as most people have understood it excludes from "the public sphere" a key component of many citizens' identities, which is their freedom of conscience and religion.

Iain Benson further argues that a better understanding of the term "secular" would keep religion and the state jurisdictionally separate while allowing for co-operation and mutual understanding between them.

Iain Benson has been in Canadian Who's Who since 2011.

Iain Benson remains a prolific author across a range of subjects.