A debate over civil liberties is brewing inside a Montreal taxi. Cab driver Arieh Perecowicz has been handed six tickets totalling $1,400 for failing to remove family photos and religious paraphernalia from his cab.

He has refused to pay any of the tickets and instead, is driving his case straight to the Human Rights Commission.

Like many cab drivers, Perecowicz spends a lot of time in his cab and keeps pictures of his family with him. The photos of his wife, daughter and son are well-secured on the dashboard and he says they are not a hazard to passengers since there is no way they could become loose.

Also on the dash are small Canadian and Israeli flags and a Remembrance Day poppy. Along with a photo of the founder of Chabad Lubavitch, a Hasidic Jewish movement, he also has two mezuzahs affixed to the car frame between the front and back doors.

Mezuzahs are tiny prayer parchments that are often posted over the door frames of Jewish homes. The prayer is said as one leaves the house in the belief it will help one return home safely.

The 65-year-old cabbie says he's had these items in his car for almost 43 years and doesn't know why they're causing a problem now.

"I don't know, I wish I knew. It's troubling," he told Canada AM Wednesday from Montreal.

The tickets were issued by the Bureau du taxi, Montreal's taxi agency, which says its bylaws allow it to order the cabbie to remove the items immediately. But Perecowicz says he doesn't understand why he should.

"The bylaw is not exactly clear; it's quite vague. The way it is written, it says 'no object should be left in a taxi that is not required for the cab to be in service.' That can be interpreted into anything you want to think of," he said.

Perecowicz argues that his cab is his workplace and plenty of other people keep personal mementoes at work. Doctors and teachers, for example, who work with members of the public every day, keep family photos in their workplaces.

Even the speaker in Quebec's National Assembly keeps a religious item at his workplace - a crucifix -- that is not required or necessary for his job.

Perecowicz says he has never once heard a complaint from a customer that the items in his car offended them. "This is coming directly from the city."

He wonders what sparked the first ticket back in December, 2006, but notes that it came days after he and other drivers went on television to complain that the taxi bureau was not acting to curtail unlicensed cabs.

The cabbie believes the taxi agency has overstepped its bounds with its bylaw.

"I don't see how the city had the mandate and the power to step into something that is clearly, in my mind, a federal issue where the Charter does give us a right of freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of expression," Perecowicz said.

The Commission des Transports du Quebec, which governs cab drivers and other drivers for all of Quebec outside of Montreal, has also inspected his taxi and officials had no problem with the items in his car, he says.

Perecowicz took his complaint to the Quebec Human Rights Commission a few years ago, but the tickets have kept coming. The Commission has approved the file and is investigating.

Perecowicz will be in court on the matter next week. Since he can't afford a lawyer, he will represent himself.

The taxi bureau did not respond to requests from CTV for comment.