The Supreme Court of Canada decision allowing Montrealer Gurbaj Singh Multani to attend school with a kirpan raised a storm in Quebec

Lysiane Gagnon:

In a country where little old ladies cannot board an airplane with a small pair of manicure scissors, being allowed to bring a dagger into school seems, to say the least, illogical.

Of course, there is little chance that young Multani or other religious Sikhs would use their kirpan as a weapon, but their daggers could be stolen by other students. The Supreme Court, following a lower court's earlier judgment, dealt with the argument about security by micromanaging the issue: The kirpan should be put in an envelope sewn into the student's clothes.

In any case, this is beside the point. Little old ladies' manicure scissors pose no risk either, especially when they are in a cosmetic bag placed in a suitcase that is itself stored in an overhead baggage compartment.

The point is that in Canada, there are laws and regulations preventing the carrying of weapons and possibly offensive objects in airplanes and schools, and these laws should be respected by all.

There is a reasonable limit to the extent that Canada should accommodate religious rights. (Incidentally, most religious Sikhs do not wear, and do not claim the right to wear, a real kirpan and opt for a small symbolic representation of the dagger.)

A degree of common sense should be used by the courts. Otherwise, why not allow fundamentalist Muslims to slit the throat of sheep in the middle of the street, as they ritually do in Muslim countries to celebrate the sacred day of Eid al-Adha? Or should streets be closed to traffic on Shabbat in the districts where the Hasidim are concentrated? Should creationism be taught in public schools to accommodate fundamentalist Christians? I'm not exaggerating. After all, didn't Ontario come within an inch of allowing sharia-based civil courts to deal with family issues? And aren't some Toronto academics seriously talking about the possibility of legalizing polygamy in order to accommodate some religious groups?

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