Sikh group barred from legislature over kirpans

QUEBEC CITY — Hearings into the accommodation of minority groups were disrupted Tuesday when security agents refused to accommodate four Sikh officials who refused to turn in their ceremonial daggers.

The representatives of the World Sikh Organization of Canada were denied access to the Quebec legislature for a scheduled presentation before a committee examining Bill 94.

The draft legislation sets out rules for accommodating minority groups in government. Much of the attention has centred around a proposed government ban on serving or hiring women who insist on wearing Islamic face coverings. But there has also been tension in the past over the Sikh dagger, known as the kirpan.

A Montreal school board’s decision to ban the kirpan on school grounds made it all the way to the Supreme Court in 2006. The high court ruled unanimously that schools have the right to impose conditions on students wearing the Sikh religious symbol but that a blanket ban on the daggers infringes fundamental religious freedom.

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