Ot­tawa, Canada: Cana­dian In­ter­na­tional Ex­hi­bi­tion cen­tre Evraz Place al­lows Sikh vis­i­tors to wear Kir­pan af­ter WSO in­ter­ven­tion

Con­tin­u­ing its on­go­ing cam­paign to en­sure Sikh rights are pro­tected in Canada, the WSO yet again in­ter­vened on be­half of a Sikh fam­ily to con­vince the man­agers of Evraz Place, for­merly known as Regina Ex­hi­bi­tion Park in Regina, Saskatchewan to al­low Sikh vis­i­tors to wear the Kir­pan.

Ear­lier, in Au­gust this year, Simar­jit Singh Ba­jwa, his fam­ily and friends were stopped from en­ter­ing Evraz Place in Regina where the an­nual Queen City EX was be­ing held.  The EX in­cludes rides, foods and stalls.  Se­cu­rity at Evraz Place spot­ted the kir­pans worn by the group and told them that they con­sid­ered the kir­pan a ‘weapon’ and would not al­low them on the premises.  De­spite their at­tempts at ex­plain­ing the re­li­gious sig­nif­i­cance of the kir­pan, and of­fer­ing to con­ceal the kir­pan un­der their cloth­ing, Simar­jit Singh and those with him were not per­mit­ted to en­ter.

Upon in­ter­ven­tion by WSO, Evraz Place has now in­tro­duced a kir­pan pol­icy for guests, ac­cord­ing to which, Sikh vis­i­tors may wear kir­pans of up to 7.5” in length if they are worn in the sheath and re­strained in a fab­ric belt (gatra), un­der­neath the cloth­ing.

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WSO Pres­i­dent Mukhbir Singh said, “while the Sikh com­mu­nity en­joys a very high pro­file in Canada these days, we still reg­u­larly see cases of Sikhs fac­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion be­cause of the kir­pan and other ar­ti­cles of faith.  Legally there is no rea­son for any pro­hi­bi­tion on the kir­pan in any pub­lic place but some­times it re­quires our or­ga­ni­za­tion to in­form and ed­u­cate in or­der to re­solve sit­u­a­tions.”