In a forth­right de­nun­ci­a­tion of the re­cently pub­lished Mac­don­ald-Lau­rier In­sti­tute Re­port by Terry Milewski -Khal­is­tan -Pro­ject of Pak­istan, the World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada has re­buked the think tank’s de­ci­sion to pub­lish the poorly re­searched re­port, which makes “un­founded claims and fails to en­gage in a con­tex­tu­ally based analy­sis and makes no at­tempt to pre­sent a bal­anced analy­sis of the is­sue.”

THE WORLD SIKH OR­GA­NI­ZA­TION OF CANADA HAS DE­BUNKED the re­port by re­tired CBC jour­nal­ist Terry Milewski, pub­lished by Canada think tank Mac­don­ald-Lau­rier In­sti­tute, as con­tro­ver­sial and bi­ased. WSO  states that the re­port fails to sub­stan­ti­ate scan­dalous al­le­ga­tions through rea­son­able analy­sis, facts and ref­er­ences.

Pub­lished on Sep­tem­ber 9, 2020, the re­port Khal­is­tan -A Pro­ject of Pak­istan, claims that the Khal­is­tan move­ment is dri­ven by Pak­istan and that Sikh ac­tivism in Canada- a “pre­dictable drum­beat of vic­tim­iza­tion, per­se­cu­tion and geno­cide com­mem­o­ra­tion….[is] part of a stun­ningly or­ches­trated cam­paign that se­duces the best in­ten­tions of earnest politi­cians.”

WSO has en­dorsed the call of Sikh schol­ars seek­ing a re­trac­tion of the re­port by the in­sti­tute in the name of fair­ness and Cana­dian de­mo­c­ra­tic norms and val­ues.

With­out minc­ing words, World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion Pres­i­dent Tejin­der Singh Sidhu, in his re­ac­tion to the re­port said, “The re­port un­crit­i­cally par­rots a nar­ra­tive that is pushed by In­dia with re­spect to Sikhs in Canada. It is note­wor­thy that var­i­ous fake news sites in In­dia pub­lished ar­ti­cles in sup­port of the re­port and In­dian em­bassies across the world pub­lished links to the re­port in a trans­par­ently cal­cu­lated man­ner, shortly af­ter it was re­leased.”

“The re­port un­crit­i­cally par­rots a nar­ra­tive that is pushed by In­dia with re­spect to Sikhs in Canada. It is note­wor­thy that var­i­ous fake news sites in In­dia pub­lished ar­ti­cles in sup­port of the re­port and In­dian em­bassies across the world pub­lished links to the re­port in a trans­par­ently cal­cu­lated man­ner, shortly af­ter it was re­leased.”

Tejin­der Singh Sidhu, Pres­i­dent, World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada

Re­but­ting the way­ward ref­er­ences to the World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion in the re­port, the WSO Pres­i­dent said, “The WSO has ad­vo­cated on be­half of Cana­dian Sikhs and hu­man rights for over 35 years, whether it is through ap­pear­ing at the Supreme Court of Canada on be­half of the Sikh com­mu­nity, launch­ing the Sikh Fam­ily Helpline, or train­ing youth lead­ers via the Sikh Youth Lead­er­ship In­sti­tute. Our work and track record speak for it­self. On the other hand, Mr Milewski’s work leaves lit­tle doubt as to whom he speaks for.”

Clearly, the Mac­don­ald-Lau­rier In­sti­tute has touched the raw nerve of the Sikhs and es­pe­cially Sikh-Cana­di­ans. In the healthy tra­di­tion of de­bate and dis­cus­sion, squarely the ball is now in their court to re­spond to the Sikhs.