Kirpan, ballot and prom

éditorial
G&M Saturday, March 23, 2002 – Page A16

Although Canada prides itself on its tolerance, diversity and spirit of accommodation, we are not as inclusive as we like to think we are. Three current cases suggest that major institutions are still ambivalent about the duty to accommodate differences in our population.

This duty has been well-established in case law. Sikh Mounties have long since won the right to wear a turban. It was a decade ago that a Seventh-Day Adventist janitor won a unanimous ruling from the Supreme Court of Canada to have Saturday, his Sabbath, off. Yet it seems none of this has been settled in the public mind.

In Montreal, a 12-year-old Sikh schoolboy has been barred from wearing his kirpan, a small, spiritually important instrument that looks like a dagger. The Marguerite-Bourgeoys School Board is concerned it could be used as a weapon.

If the kirpan posed a real danger, that would certainly justify imposing limits on the Sikh boy's right to wear it. The problem is that an exhaustive board of inquiry set up in Ontario in 1990 found that in 100 years of kirpans being worn at Canadian schools, there had never been a report of a violent kirpan incident. No evidence since has suggested a growing danger.

It is fundamental that public schools be open to all and not, as the price of being open, require minority students to become something they are not: people who dress in a secular fashion. The effect would be to drive them away to private, religious-based schools. The 1990 Ontario ruling -- that kirpans could be worn if they were no more than 17 centimetres long, were concealed under the wearer's clothing and were secured to make removal difficult -- was eminently reasonable, and should be followed in Montreal.

In another case, a Roman Catholic school board near Toronto has told a homosexual teenage boy that he cannot attend his high-school prom with a man as his date. Unless he denies his nature, this gay student is to be cast out of this celebration of his high-school career and receive a powerful message of exclusion.

The complicating factor is that the Durham Catholic Regional School Board has a legitimate goal of ensuring that its activities reflect the church teachings. Although the board is part of Ontario's public system, it would be unfair that a condition of accepting public money be to denude the Catholic system of its Catholic character. However, the church teaches that, while homosexual acts are a sin, Catholicism does not reject a person because of his sexual orientation. By its actions, the board is rejecting this boy and all other gay students in its schools.

The third example involves Ontario's Conservative Party, which is holding a leadership vote today, the Jewish Sabbath, but is refusing to accommodate observant Jewish voters. The right to vote, and to participate in the political process, is elemental. By narrowing access to a party vote, the party has undermined the democratic process itself.

Was there an accommodation the party could reasonably have made, while still holding the vote on a Saturday? One possibility was to permit advance polling. True, the plan to hold a runoff ballot if necessary on the same day added a complication; but second and third ballots could have been held after sundown (now 6:30 in most of Ontario), when the Sabbath ends. In future, the principle of one person, one vote should be the cornerstone. A weekday evening convention, common in the U.S., is one option.

Doing nothing in these circumstances is not a neutral act. It divides us into those who are inside, and those who are out. It is a bad habit to take up.