© Christinne Muschi / The Globe and MailGurbaj Singh Multani wears his kirpan as he poses in his home in the Montreal suburb of Lasalle, September 18, 2013.
Gurbaj Multani walked into his Montreal school when he was 11 years old and found 300 adults shouting at him.
There was a time in his teens when virtually the whole province was united against him. But through it all, he still liked Quebec. Only now, at age 23, is Mr. Multani contemplating leaving it.
The soft-spoken Sikh, an accounting student at Concordia University, has his name on a 2006 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that broke new ground for religious freedom throughout the country. The entire court supported his right to wear a kirpan - a ceremonial dagger - to school, as long as it was sewn into his clothing.
Mr. Multani may be a harbinger for Quebec's religious minorities, if the proposed Charter of Values that would ban the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in the public-sector workforce becomes law. He thought he had won his fight for good, thought he would live on happily in the province, his right to wear his religious symbols guaranteed. But Mr. Multani also wears a turban, which would run afoul of the charter's provisions if he were to work in the public sector. In effect, the powerful emotions he helped touch off in Quebec have rebounded on him, and may drive him out.
"It's a friendly province," he says, and he doesn't wish to leave.
"But when the government doesn't give you a choice, what can I do? Why would I have to choose between my religion and a job?" He fears the private sector would copy the constraints.
The kirpan he wears was once the ultimate symbol of overt religious garb in the province. As a boy, he was kept from school for five months over his wearing of it. Then he won the right at Quebec Superior Court. That's when he returned to his public school and got shouted at - some told him "Go home, Paki," he says.
"That was a little bit discouraging. They don't even know who I am."