More than half a mil­lion Sikh Cana­di­ans have a proud mo­ment to cel­e­brate as the Cana­dian Par­lia­ment has passed the Sikh Her­itage Month Act, des­ig­nat­ing April as the Sikh Her­itage Month across Canada for all times to come, en­abling them to en­hance Sikh aware­ness and or­gan­ise Vaisakhi cel­e­bra­tions in a more grandiose man­ner.

After a leg­isla­tive rig­ma­role of nearly eigh­teen months, the Bill c-376 seek­ing April to be Sikh Her­itage Month moved on 19 Oc­to­ber 2017, as a pri­vate mem­ber’s bill by the unas­sum­ing yet de­ter­mined Sur­rey-New­ton Mem­ber Par­lia­ment Sukhmin­der Singh Dhali­wal, pop­u­larly known as Sukh Dhali­wal, be­came law on 30 April 2019, af­ter it re­ceived the royal as­sent.

The Bill re­ceived unan­i­mous sup­port in a vote in the House of Com­mons on No­vem­ber 7, 2018 and was passed in the Sen­ate on April 11, 2019. When the Sen­ate ap­proved it, speak­ing to a sec­tion of the me­dia in Canada, Sukh Dhali­wal at­trib­uted the his­toric oc­ca­sion of the pas­sage of the bill to the hard work and dili­gence of Sikh pi­o­neers who reached Canada more than a cen­tury ago. The hum­ble Sukh Dhali­wal said that it was his priv­i­lege to in­tro­duce this pri­vate mem­ber’s bill in Par­lia­ment.

Justin Trudeau has the proud priv­i­lege of be­ing the Prime Min­is­ter of Canada at a time, when hate mon­gers are spread­ing their drag­net in many coun­tries, but the Lib­eral-led gov­ern­ment of Canada makes a re­mark­able show of ac­knowl­edg­ing the  Sikh com­mu­nity and ap­pre­ci­at­ing the need to build bridges across re­li­gions and cul­tures, thus be­com­ing the first coun­try in the world to de­clare April as the Sikh Her­itage Month as an act of Par­lia­ment.

In mul­ti­cul­tural Canada, this is not just a vic­tory and joy­ous oc­ca­sion for Sikh-Cana­di­ans, but all Cana­di­ans.  A hun­dred year story can­not be writ­ten, nar­rated or cel­e­brated in iso­la­tion. It is the story of Sikh re­silience and Canada’s large-hearted ac­com­mo­dat­ing and un­bi­ased so­cial and po­lit­i­cal frame­work. Sikhs reached Canada more than a hun­dred years ago. Through sheer hard labour, dili­gence and piec­ing their per­sonal and so­cial life to­gether, brick by brick, Sikhs have vir­tu­ally made Canada their sec­ond moth­er­land, af­ter the Pun­jab.

WSO Pres­i­dent Mukhbir Singh said, “The Sikh Her­itage Month Act in Canada is a great way to con­clude Sikh Her­itage Month in 2019.   It pro­vides an im­por­tant op­por­tu­nity for Cana­dian Sikhs to share and cel­e­brate their faith and his­tory with their neigh­bours. WSO con­grat­u­lates MP Sukh Dhali­wal for his work in mak­ing the recog­ni­tion of Sikh Her­itage Month pos­si­ble.”

The short bill, which is now an Act of Par­lia­ment men­tions that Canada has the sec­ond-largest pop­u­la­tion of Sikhs. Canada’s Sikh pop­u­la­tion is sec­ond only to In­dia where the cra­dle of the Sikhism in home­land Pun­jab lies. The Act rec­og­nizes the sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions that Sikh Cana­di­ans have made to Canada’s so­cial, eco­nomic, po­lit­i­cal and cul­tural fab­ric, as well as the rich­ness of the Pun­jabi lan­guage and cul­ture and the Gur­mukhi script.

The Sikh Her­itage Month Act takes into ac­count the re­li­gios­ity, love and joy as­so­ci­ated with the month of April across the Sikh world and promises that with its pas­sage, Canada will pro­vide an op­por­tu­nity to re­flect on, cel­e­brate and ed­u­cate fu­ture gen­er­a­tions about the in­spi­ra­tional role that Sikh Cana­di­ans have played and con­tinue to play in com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try.

In Canada, the first Sikh Her­itage Month was cel­e­brated in On­tario in 2013 and then in British Co­lum­bia in 2017. States and provinces across the United States have been cel­e­brat­ing April as Sikh Aware­ness Month for the past cou­ple of years. Even the British Par­lia­ment did so this year. In all these places, it has been the re­sult of res­o­lu­tions and early day mo­tions. In Canada, it is an Act of Par­lia­ment which will en­able Sikhs to par­take fed­eral sup­port to en­hance Sikh aware­ness and cel­e­brate Vaisakhi with more gusto and fer­vour.

Guru Nanak has blessed the Sikhs of Canada and of the world with this joy­ous oc­ca­sion dur­ing the course of the 550 year cel­e­bra­tions of the First Mas­ter’s ad­vent.