Four months of sus­tained ef­fort and lob­by­ing by WSO and other Sikh or­gan­i­sa­tions fi­nally re­sulted in per­suad­ing the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment to drop the term ‘Sikh (Khal­is­tani) Ter­ror­ism’ from the 2018 Pub­lic Safety Re­port. WSO has wel­comed the move, Sikh body Dal Khalsa has hailed the de­ci­sion and the Pun­jab CM Amarinder Singh is up­set.

The amend­ment of the 2018 Pub­lic Safety Re­port on the Ter­ror­ism Threat to Canada by the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment is a be­lated move by the Trudeau gov­ern­ment, which sig­ni­fies a ma­ture democ­racy which has bowed to over­whelm­ing pub­lic opin­ion against the re­port and also shows the stead­fast clar­ity with which the World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada and other Sikh ac­tivists, or­gan­i­sa­tions and Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, es­pe­cially Sikh mem­bers of Par­lia­ment have lob­bied and de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cally protested to bring about this change.

Since the last five months, the World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada spared no ef­fort to in­ter­act with the Pub­lic Safety Min­is­ter and other MPs to for­ward the views of Sikh Cana­di­ans in the mat­ter. Start­ing with the #AskCana­di­an­Sikhs cam­paign to the Town­hall Meet­ing at Bramp­ton or­gan­ised by On­tario Sikh and Gur­d­waras Coun­cil and On­tario Gur­d­waras Com­mit­tee, the pres­sure was on to know the ra­tio­nale and back­ground for in­clud­ing such a men­tion with­out any sup­port, proof or de­tails of any in­ci­dent what­so­ever.

The re­moval of the term ‘Sikh (Khal­is­tani) Ex­trem­ism’ from the 2018 Pub­lic Safety Ter­ror Re­port is an im­por­tant step in ad­dress­ing the con­cerns of the Sikh com­mu­nity.  We hope to en­gage in a di­a­logue with the Cana­dian Gov­ern­ment to en­sure that a mis­take like this is not re­peated.”

Mukhbir Singh, Pres­i­dent, World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada

The Min­is­ter for Pub­lic Safety, Ralph Goodale on 7 April made a pub­lic state­ment ac­knowl­edg­ing that, the ti­tle, “Sikh (Khal­is­tani) Ex­trem­ism” has been re­moved and re­placed with “Ex­trem­ists who sup­port vi­o­lent means to es­tab­lish an in­de­pen­dent state within In­dia”.  He even said that “the lan­guage used to de­scribe some threats un­in­ten­tion­ally ma­ligned cer­tain com­mu­ni­ties….and is not in line with the val­ues of the Gov­ern­ment of Canada”.

“The lan­guage used to de­scribe some threats un­in­ten­tion­ally ma­ligned cer­tain com­mu­ni­ties….and is not in line with the val­ues of the Gov­ern­ment of Canada”.

Ralph Goodale, Canada's Min­is­ter for Pub­lic Safety

Wel­com­ing the move, WSO Pres­i­dent Mukhbir Singh said, “The re­moval of the term ‘Sikh (Khal­is­tani) Ex­trem­ism’ from the 2018 Pub­lic Safety Ter­ror Re­port is an im­por­tant step in ad­dress­ing the con­cerns of the Sikh com­mu­nity.  We hope to en­gage in a di­a­logue with the Cana­dian Gov­ern­ment to en­sure that a mis­take like this is not re­peated.”

WSO has also pointed out that, “The 2018 Re­port un­fairly tar­geted and ma­ligned spe­cific re­li­gious com­mu­ni­ties and the change could not have come soon enough.  We note that terms like “Shia” and “Sunni” have not yet been changed in the Re­port.”

“This cor­rec­tion of its mis­take by the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment was a vic­tory of lob­by­ing and diplo­matic ef­forts of Sikh Cana­di­ans.”

Dal Khalsa

In home­land Pun­jab, Dal Khalsa wel­comed the re­moval of “Khal­is­tani Ex­trem­ism” ref­er­ence in the Canada Pub­lic Safety Re­port 2018. “This cor­rec­tion of its mis­take by the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment was a vic­tory of lob­by­ing and diplo­matic ef­forts of Sikh Cana­di­ans. This is also a snub to the In­dian lobby which ear­lier man­aged the un­sub­stan­ti­ated ref­er­ence in the re­port,” read the Dal Khalsa state­ment.

The un­of­fi­cial spokesper­son of the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia -the chief min­is­ter of Pun­jab Cap­tain Amarinder Singh be­came the first In­dian leader to be up­set at the re­moval of the un­sub­stan­ti­ated ref­er­ence to Sikhs, even be­fore any of­fi­cial In­dian re­ac­tion to the move.  Call­ing it a knee-jerk re­ac­tion by the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment, his re­ac­tion is yet an­other set of hy­per­bole. He has said, “Such an act amounted to en­dorse­ment of ter­ror ac­tiv­i­ties and de facto pro­mo­tion of ex­trem­ism.”

Amarinder Singh goes on to take a global role by adding, “The world can­not af­ford to fan ex­trem­ism in any form, which is what the Trudeau gov­ern­ment was ef­fec­tively do­ing with such ill-thought moves.” If the in­ten­tion of the Pun­jab chief min­is­ter is to stop Cana­dian in­flu­ence in the Pun­jab, he will do well to know that the Sikh Di­as­pora will con­tinue its cam­paign for jus­tice and hu­man rights,” said a hu­man rights ac­tivist, on a con­di­tion of anonymity.

“The world can­not af­ford to fan ex­trem­ism in any form, which is what the Trudeau gov­ern­ment was ef­fec­tively do­ing with such ill-thought moves.”

Capt. Amarinder Singh, Chief Min­is­ter of Pun­jab

“Toe­ing In­di­a’s of­fi­cial line of of­fend­ing Sikh Cana­di­ans and cas­ti­gat­ing Sikhs in Pun­jab with­out any ba­sis what­so­ever is fraught with the kind of prob­lems that we have seen in the past and the Pun­jab CM will do well to stick to gov­ern­ing his state and en­sur­ing hu­man rights of Pun­jabis,” added the hu­man rights ac­tivist.

Mean­while, it is sig­nif­i­cant that WSO is con­tin­u­ing its lob­by­ing ef­forts to en­sure that there is rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Sikh com­mu­nity on the Cross-Cul­tural Round­table on Se­cu­rity.

Not fully con­tent with the re­moval of the ma­lign­ing sec­tions, WSO has also  said, “While we still have con­cerns about how and why the ma­lign­ing sec­tions were added to the Re­port in the first place.” With Amarinder Singh’s re­ac­tion, it is not dif­fi­cult to imag­ine.