WSO has asked the Cana­dian Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Safety to prove that Sikh ex­trem­ism is a threat to Canada. This is a fight for facts, not se­man­tics.

WSO and Lib­eral party Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, in­clud­ing MP Ran­deep Sarai and NDP MP Matthew Dube, among oth­ers, have ques­tioned the Pub­lic Safety Canada Re­port’s men­tion about Sikh ex­trem­ism, forc­ing the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Safety and Emer­gency Pre­pared­ness Ralph Goodale to pub­licly an­nounced that his min­istry would look into the word­ing of the ref­er­ence to Sikhs and that there will not be any gen­eral ma­lign­ing of a com­mu­nity.

Sig­nif­i­cantly, many other Sikh mem­bers of par­lia­ment are pub­licly silent on the is­sue. It is time they speak out. The Lib­er­als should cat­a­log how Sikh lead­ers have made their way to the top of Cana­dian pol­i­tics and how this in­volve­ment has brought a new di­men­sion to Sikh as­pi­ra­tions within Canada.

The World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion has writ­ten a mis­sive to the min­is­ter, ask­ing him the mean­ing of “some in­di­vid­u­als in Canada con­tinue to sup­port Sikh (Khal­is­tani) ex­trem­ist ide­olo­gies and move­ments.” The let­ter by WSO pres­i­dent Mukhbir Singh forth­rightly states, “We wish to be very clear- ad­vo­cacy for Sikh hu­man rights or Khal­is­tan is not ex­trem­ism and to sug­gest that it poses a dan­ger to Canada is ab­solutely lu­di­crous.  There is noth­ing to sug­gest there is any­thing hap­pen­ing in Canada’s Sikh com­mu­nity ex­cept peace­ful ac­tivism. We are deeply dis­ap­pointed that our com­mu­nity has been stig­ma­tized due what to ap­pears to be for­eign in­ter­fer­ence and pres­sure.”

As a run-up to the gen­eral elec­tions in 2019, with the for­mi­da­ble Jag­meet Singh of NDP pos­ing a na­tional chal­lenge to the Lib­er­als, the party is shoot­ing in the foot by an­noy­ing the Sikh elec­torate of the coun­try. It will do them a lot of good po­lit­i­cally to set the record straight by ad­mit­ting a mis­take and with­draw­ing all ref­er­ence to Sikhs al­to­gether from the 2018 Pub­lic Safety Canada re­port.

Is it just words as Min­is­ter Goodale has pointed out? As WSO and MP Ran­deep Sarai have stated it is be­yond that. There has been no in­ci­dent of mass vi­o­lence in re­la­tion to Sikhs af­fect­ing Cana­di­ans in Canada or be­yond the shores of the coun­try. On the coun­try there has been an ex­po­nen­tial in­crease in peace­ful and hu­man rights ac­tivism, which should be mu­sic to the hears of all Cana­di­ans.

Soon af­ter Pub­lic Safety Canada made pub­lic its 2018 Re­port on Ter­ror­ism Threat to Canada with ref­er­ence to Sikh (Khal­is­tani) ter­ror­ism, World Sikh News ed­i­to­ri­ally com­mented that the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment with­draw the re­port. And we were not the only ones. Cana­dian Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, Sikh rights bod­ies within Canada led by the World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion, po­lit­i­cal bod­ies in Pun­jab and hu­man ac­tivists ex­pressed out­rage at the first-time un­sub­stan­ti­ated ref­er­ence in the re­port to Sikhs, with the only ref­er­ence be­ing that of the 1985 Air In­dia bomb­ing.

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The Sikh world joins the World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada in ask­ing the Cana­dian min­is­ter, “Prove that Sikh ex­trem­ism is a threat to Canada.” If not, do not re­duce it to a se­man­tic fight, show heart and with­draw the ref­er­ence to Sikhs in toto.