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BC Students Welcome Kirpan Ruling

March 5th, 2006 by admin

Quebec ban on Sikh symbol unconstitutional

Glenn Bohn
Vancouver Sun, with a file from Canadian Press

Friday, March 03, 2006

Sikh students at a Surrey high school welcomed Thursday a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that overturned a Montreal school board ban on students wearing the kirpan, a ceremonial knife or sword that is a tenet of the Sikh faith.

The Surrey school board made a different call in 2004, when it okayed a regulation that declared the kirpan will not be considered a weapon, “as long as it remains sheathed and concealed.”

Paul Matharu, a 15-year-old Sikh who was wearing a turban and traditional Indian clothes Thursday, a multicultural day at Queen Elizabeth senior secondary school, said students of other ethnic origins have nothing to fear.

“The people who wear kirpans are really religious, so they wouldn’t use it as a weapon,” Matharu said in an interview. “They shouldn’t be worried.”

He and 16-year-old Gurditta Sidhubrar said they have not heard of an incident in school in which a kirpan was used to harm an individual.

The boys, who weren’t wearing kirpans Thursday, said the knives are so blunt they can barely cut through butter.

“I don’t think it should be banned, because nothing bad has happened with them,” Sidhubrar said. “The people who wear it wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

Some students, however, weren’t quite ready to accept those assurances.

Charles Lodato, 17, conceded that kirpans have not been a problem at Queen Elizabeth, but he said they could be.

“If someone comes to school and they’re on E [ecstacy] or they’re really high on something or drunk, they’ll have no hesitation to pull it out and stab somebody,” he said.

But Surrey school board chairman Shawn Wilson, a trustee since 1999, said he can’t recall a single time in which a kirpan became a weapon in a Surrey school.

Wilson said there has been no clamour from the community to prohibit the wearing of kirpans in schools, but conceded that a lot of people in Surrey probably aren’t aware that Sikh students can take kirpans into schools.

There are more than 64,000 students in Surrey, from kindergarten to Grade 12. The school board estimates about 40 per cent are from households where a language other than English is spoken.

In its unanimous 8-0 judgment Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled the Marguerite-Bourgeoys school board went too went too far in imposing a blanket ban on the wearing of the Sikh ceremonial dagger.

The Montreal dispute dates back to 2001, when student Gurbaj Singh Multani, then 12 years old, first wore his kirpan to school.

School administrators tried to work out a compromise that would allow him to continue wearing the religious emblem, as long as the kirpan remained under a layer of clothes, but the board overruled that approach and imposed a total ban.

Canada’s highest court found the ban infringes on the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom, a right enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But the judgment also left room for some restrictions to be imposed on the carrying of kirpans in the name of public safety.

A number of schools in B.C., Alberta and Ontario have long permitted the wearing of kirpans subject to certain conditions. The rules often include a size limit on the dagger, or a requirement to keep it sheathed and to wear it under clothing and out of sight.

Those conditions are acceptable to the vast majority of orthodox Sikhs, said Palbinder Shergill, counsel for the Canadian branch of the World Sikh Organization.

“I certainly hope this decision will put that matter to rest once and for all,” she told reporters.

Gurbaj Singh, now 17 and in his last year of high school — a private school that allows him to wear his kirpan — acknowledged that the five years it took for the case to make its way through the courts were a bit stressful.

“I was a little scared but the community supported me a lot, they stood by me shoulder by shoulder,” he said. “I’m thankful to them.”

The ruling will ease the way for younger students still in public schools in Quebec, he said.

“I feel very good that we won our rights. Everybody should stand for their rights.”

During a Supreme Court hearing last April, the court was told there has never been a school assault committed with a kirpan in Canada.

gbohn@png.canwest.com

RELIGIOUS SYMBOL:

The kirpan, a religious symbol of the Sikh faith, can be anything from a metre-long sword to a 10-cm knife.

It is usually worn by orthodox Sikhs under a layer of clothing, but can also be worn where it is visible.

Guru Gobind Singh, the faith’s 10th guru, instituted in 1699 a Sikh baptism ceremony that required all baptized Sikhs to wear the kirpan at all times.

Orthodox Sikhs make up about 10 per cent of the estimated 250,000 Sikhs in Canada.

Sources: Kirpan website (www.sikhs.ca/kirpan), Sikhism home page (www.sikhs.org)

Source: Canadian Press.

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