This past week, Quebecers openly showed what it is to be a distinct society within Canada.
On Jan. 18, four members of the World Sikh Organization of Canada were refused access to the National Assembly of Quebec because they were wearing kirpans.
Ironically, the members of the Sikh community kicked out of the National Assembly were trying to get in to present their views on Bill 94, anti-niqab and anti-burka legislation that would require anyone dispensing or receiving a government-paid service in places like hospitals and schools to show their faces.
While carrying a kirpan, a ceremonial dagger, in the Quebec National Assembly is considered dangerous, it is allowed in Quebec schools. Supreme Court judges unanimously decided in 2006 to allow a Montreal student to attend school with his kirpan.
The judgment even underlined that banning it would violate the charter’s guarantee of freedom of religion.
But for a strong majority of Quebecers, whether it is an article of faith or not, a kirpan is first and foremost a weapon. If a knife is not allowed on a plane, why should it be allowed in parliament? And no one has forgotten the shooting in May 1984 when Cpl. Denis Lortie killed three and injured 13 people in the National Assembly.
The different reactions of the two solitudes were interesting. In Quebec City, the Charest government’s response was wishy-washy. Immigration minister Kathleen Weil left it up to the National Assembly’s security to decide, while opposition parties cheered at the ban.
Parti Quebecois spokesman Louise Beaudoin, reminded of her earlier disagreement with the Supreme Court’s decision on the kirpan, even declared “multiculturalism may be a Canadian value. But it is not a Quebec one.”
The Action democratique du Quebec went a step further by asking the Sikh community living in Quebec to obey their duty of reasonable accommodation for the majority.
“It’s part of the accommodation. If you come here, you put your kirpan aside,” said the ADQ leader, Gerard Deltell.
MNA Francois Bonnardel added “a weapon is a weapon, period. There is no tolerance. If I founded a sect and decided a Swiss knife is my object of worship, would you allow me in the National Assembly?”
In Ottawa, the Bloc Quebecois smelled a good wedge issue. It now wants to push for the ban of kirpans in the House of Commons.
Politically skilful, the Conservatives escaped the question by attacking the Bloc for its misplaced priorities, accusing Gilles Duceppe’s party of not being interested in economic issues.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff showed once more how far from the Quebec mainstream he is by defending the ceremonial dagger as a symbol of tolerance and religious freedom. The weapon Quebecers in the vote-rich regions wanted him to defend was not the kirpan but the gun.
The PQ’s Beaudoin might have phrased it in a way to promote her sovereignist views, but she is right in recognizing the issue at stake.
The kirpan debate brings back on the table, once more, the excesses of Canadian multiculturalism. No politician outside of Quebec might have the guts to admit it publicly, but I am quite sure many English Canadians feel very Quebecois on this distinct issue.
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