RICHARD BLACKWELL
Globe and Mail Update
The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that Sikh students can carry ceremonial daggers to class and that doing so does not pose a undue danger to others in the schools.
The top court overturned Thursday morning a Quebec Court of Appeals ruling that had barred the kirpan from schools in the province. The Quebec court had said a limit on religious freedom was reasonable, given the safety concerns from carrying the daggers to school.
Several other provinces have long ago reached compromises with the Sikh community, allowing the carrying of the kirpan – a requirement for baptized followers of the Sikh religion – as long as it is safely sheathed and concealed.
The 2004 ruling from the Quebec appeal court, however, dismissed any possibility of a compromise in that province.
The specific case that went to the Supreme Court involves Gurbaj Singh Multani, now 17. Five years ago, he accidentally dropped his kirpan in the schoolyard of a Montreal elementary school.
Parents of other children pressured the local school board to ban the dagger, because of a zero-tolerance policy concerning weapons.
Gurbaj's parents sued, and the case wound its way through the courts for several years.
When the Supreme Court heard the arguments last April, several organizations – including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and the World Sikh Organization of Canada – intervened to support the family.
They noted that there have been no examples of any violent acts in schools as a result of wearing of the kirpan.
The youth transferred to a private school soon after the controversy erupted in 2001, and some of the intervenors were concerned that there would be a mass exodus by Sikh students from public schools across the country if the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the ban.
In its intervention, the Quebec government supported the ban, arguing that any potential weapon can cause a unnecessary risk in the schools.
