That’s great: a freedom bestowed by government to a select few, to do something demonstrably inessential, that the government hopes they won’t actually do.
Just in time for Sikh Heritage Month, Alberta recently became the third province to allow Sikhs the dubious privilege of riding motorcycles without helmets. In a government press release, Transportation Minister Brian Mason nodded to “civil rights and religious expression,” while Canada’s first turban-wearing Mountie, Baltej Singh Dhillon, appreciated the government “respecting diversity and religious rights.”
“The government should always strive to accommodate free expression,” said Kelly Ernst, president of the Rocky Mountain Civil Liberties Association, “especially when the expression does not harm others.”
So far as I know, no Canadian Sikh has ever claimed a religious obligation to ride a motorcycle.
And what of the government’s and its supporters’ arguments? To whatever extent that helmetless Sikh motorcyclists do “not harm others,” per Ernst, surely that’s true of helmetless non-Sikh motorcyclists as well. Mason, the Transportation Minister, seemed to dismiss the other obvious concern — the potential for increased health-care costs — by saying not many people would avail themselves of this new right.