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TORONTO - A proposal to scrap the reading of the Lord's Prayer in the Ontario legislature has prompted 5,700 submissions from the public - temporarily crashing the legislature's website - and hundreds of phone calls from many who want the province to preserve the Christian tradition.

While Premier Dalton McGuinty says it's time to open the province's legislative debate with a more inclusive prayer, politicians tasked with sifting through the varied opinions say the majority don't want to see Ontario fall in line with other provinces by replacing the Lord's Prayer.

Speaker Steve Peters, who is chairing a committee to determine the fate of the prayer, said the response through the legislature's website has been overwhelming.

The traffic was so heavy when the committee first set up the online form that it temporarily crashed the website, resulting in hundreds of calls to Peters' office. More than half the Conservative caucus have presented petitions in the house on the topic and the committee has yet to hear from about 50 different faith groups.

Those handpicked organizations, from the Assembly of First Nations to atheists to Christian denominations, have until the end of the month to make their case.

"The committee is going to have a lot of information to review," Peters said.

McGuinty - who has said he was scolded by his Catholic mother for proposing to tinker with the Lord's Prayer - said he's looking forward to the all-party committee's advice. They can follow the example set by other provinces and get rid of the Lord's Prayer entirely or rotate it along with alternative readings, McGuinty said.

"What we've talked about is, how do we ensure that the prayer at Queen's Park is more broadly representative of who we are today, at the beginning of the 21st century, rather than what we were when we first began to say that prayer in the house," he said.

Committee members say the message from the submissions so far is pretty clear - stick with the Lord's Prayer.

Conservative Garfield Dunlop said some don't mind alternating the Lord's Prayer with other readings but the vast majority don't want to see it lost altogether.

"The Lord's Prayer is inclusive enough that it covers a lot of different religions," said Dunlop, adding the reading is part of Ontario's history. "You have to take that into account. It's not just about religion. It's about tradition."

The last time the legislature debated replacing the Lord's Prayer, in 2001, Dunlop said there was a similar outcry. The debate sparked by the Conservative proposal to fund all religious schools in the last election is further proof, Dunlop said.

"You don't tamper too much with what you've got," he said. "This really irks a lot of people and gets under their skin."

People weren't clamouring to talk again about the Lord's Prayer's place in the legislature before McGuinty raised the issue in February, but New Democrat Cheri DiNovo says they are now.

"About 80 per cent of them are in favour of keeping the Lord's Prayer. Now he's getting his groundswell," said the United Church minister.

"The background of all of this is a province with one-in-eight children living in poverty. We could be spending all this money and all this time addressing that."

Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory said most Ontario residents would rather be discussing more pressing issues.

"I don't think there was any thirst to have a debate on this at all, certainly not compared to hospital emergency rooms or lost jobs," Tory said. "But now that Mr. McGuinty - for reasons best known to him - has started the debate, people are quite animated about it."

The last time the Ontario legislature updated its daily prayer was in 1969, when it changed the preamble to the Lord's Prayer. It is one of the few remaining provinces - along with Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick - still reciting the Lord's Prayer.

Both the House of Commons and the Senate recite non-denominational prayers.