MONTREAL — Canada is proud that it is one of the world's most welcoming nations to immigrants, so tolerant that several major cities have populations that are more than one-third foreign born — without producing a political backlash.
But Gurbaj Singh, a 12-year-old Sikh boy who immigrated here from a small village in the Punjab, learned the limits of Canadian tolerance in the schoolyard of his new elementary school last November.
While Gurbaj was playing basketball, his 4-inch kirpan — the ceremonial curved dagger Sikh men are obliged to wear at all times, even while sleeping — jostled loose and fell to the ground. A startled parent noticed the blade, and reported the incident to the principal.
Gurbaj found himself facing his principal, who ordered the boy to hand over his kirpan.
Since the age of 5, Gurbaj said, he has never taken off his kirpan, which in the Sikh faith symbolizes the sovereignty of man and serves as a reminder to go to the defense of others in distress.
So he walked home instead, igniting a legal struggle that has embroiled the working-class neighborhood of Lasalle and tested the limits of religious freedom in this multicultural society.
Gurbaj's act of conscience has caused him to miss months of school, and it has made him a celebrity of sorts here and as far away as India, while igniting months of radio talk show debate and fierce dueling editorials in both French and English language newspapers over minority rights.
The case has been winding its way through the courts. The provincial government of Quebec announced in late May that it would appeal a Superior Court ruling that said Gurbaj could wear his blade to school as long as it was securely enclosed in a wooden sheath tied tightly shut and remained tucked under his shirt.
"The maintenance of security in schools," said the Quebec justice minister, Paul Bégin, "requires zero tolerance for the carrying of knives."
Gurbaj and his family say that they will go all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary, and that if they lose there they will be forced to move to either Ontario or British Columbia, provinces with large Sikh populations where schools do not prohibit kirpans.
"I cannot part with my kirpan because it is part of the obligation I accepted when I took my baptism," Gurbaj said in an interview. "I am determined to stand up for my rights."
In April, when the court order allowed Gurbaj to return to school with his kirpan, he was met by dozens of angry parents, many of whom kept their children home for several days in protest. Accompanied by a police escort, Gurbaj was forced to endure a shower of racial and anti-immigrant insults from some of the adults.
For a boy of 12 in a new country, Gurbaj appears remarkably composed under all the pressure. He has an easy wide smile and curls his brow thoughtfully before answering questions.
He appears to have blended his native and Canadian cultures, spending his spare time playing basketball and searching the Web on his computer in his bedroom, which has pictures of the sacred Sikh gurus and his kirpan collection. He wears his hair tied up in a scarf called the patka and, under religious law, promises never to shave, drink alcohol or eat meat.
He says he has never gotten into a fight, and would never think of using his kirpan as a weapon. "The kirpan is not a knife, it is a religious symbol," he said.
Gurbaj's defenders say that many Sikh students have been wearing kirpans in schools in the United States, Britain and Canada for years without any violent incident.
The school administration and many parents at the Ste. Catherine Laboure primary school have a very different view. For them, Gurbaj's claim to religious freedom is a potential threat.
"He is a very pacific boy but we are concerned about the dagger," said Danielle Descoteaux, the school principal. "An object like that has no place in a school."
Real Nadeau, a sales manager and parent of two children at the school, noted that dozens of other Sikh children at Ste. Catherine Laboure wore pendants representing the kirpan to fulfill their religious obligations.
"With all the violence that appears in schools these days," Mr. Nadeau said, "why allow a weapon in school?"
Gurbaj said his religious conscience would not allow him to wear a kirpan facsimile.
With the Sikh population in Canada having reached nearly half a million and growing rapidly, the presence of kirpans in schools is not a new issue. The Peel Board of Education in Ontario Province, for instance, was ordered in a 1990 court ruling to allow students to carry kirpans to school, as long as they were no more than seven inches long and thoroughly secured in a sheath.
Only about 12,000 Sikhs live in Quebec Province, a fact that may partly explain why the kirpan is still an issue here. But Quebec Canadians have a different view of multiculturalism than much of the rest of Canada, with many preferring the French republican tradition of the melting pot over the concept of people from separate cultures living in harmony while retaining their differences.
"Quebec believes in a dominant Quebec culture," noted Julius Grey, a civil rights lawyer representing Gurbaj. "Other cultures are welcome but they must move in a constellation around the sun."