By Matthew Robinson, Vancouver Sun
Surrey resident Obi Canuel made international headlines last year when the Insurance Corp. of B.C. refused to let him wear a spaghetti strainer on his head in his driver’s license photograph.
By Matthew Robinson, Vancouver Sun
Surrey resident Obi Canuel made international headlines last year when the Insurance Corp. of B.C. refused to let him wear a spaghetti strainer on his head in his driver’s license photograph.
Canuel’s request was unusual, but as he reasoned with ICBC, he is an ordained minister in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and wears his colander in religious observance.
As it turns out, Pastafarian colanders are not the only atypical adornments ICBC customers have claimed to wear for religious purposes, according to the insurer’s internal documents.
A plastic tiara, a Saskatchewan Roughriders ball cap, bandanas and a light pink tablecloth held up by safety pins are among the colourful head coverings the insurer has seen in recent years.
Requests for accommodation of religious headgear are so commonplace that ICBC has a “Special Investigation Unit” that researches religious rituals before its manager, Ben Shotton, decrees who can and cannot cover their heads in identity photos.
ICBC refused to allow an interview with Shotton and has shrouded its religious policies in secrecy, but hundreds of documents obtained by The Vancouver Sun in a freedom of information request has offered a rare glimpse behind the veil.
It has long been ICBC policy to permit its customers to wear religious headgear that is worn “in conjunction with religious practice” and that does not interfere with its facial recognition technology. Sikh turbans, for example, are permitted in identity photos because they don’t obscure the face. Muslim burkas or niqabs, however, are not, because they cover the face.