Background In 1809,
Charles Metcalfe, acting as the representative for the
British East India Company, signed
a treaty with
Maharaja Ranjit Singh of the
Sikh Empire, which led to the safeguarding of the
cis-Sutlej states. Metcalfe would form a relationship with a Sikh lady from the Lahore court, who would birth three sons. The British East India Company annexed most of the Punjab after the
Second Anglo-Sikh war in 1849, incorporating the territory and its inhabitants into the colonial-empire. Sikhs were recruited into the British military forces immediately after, with Sikhs being rewarded with military ranks due to their loyalty to the British cause during the
Indian rebellion of 1857. He was amongst a group of Sikh officers who arrived in Vancouver on board
Empress of India in 1897. They were on the way to
Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Sikh regiments were brought to Canada for the 1897 celebration. This was a theme amongst most early Punjabi Sikh settlers in Canada to find work in the agricultural and forestry sectors in British Columbia. Punjabi Sikhs became a prominent ethnic group within the sawmill workforce in British Columbia almost immediately after initial arrival to Canada. Sikhs found employment in laying the tracks of the Canadian Pacific Railway, in lumber mills and mines. Though they earned less than white workers, they made enough money to send some of it to India and make it possible for their relatives to immigrate to Canada. In 1902, a local Khalsa Diwan chapter was already established in the United States, it would not be until 1906 until a Khalsa Diwan chapter was established in Vancouver. which would later be destroyed by fire in 1926. The second Gurdwara to be built in Canada was in 1908 in
Kitsilano (Vancouver), aimed at serving a growing number of Punjabi Sikh settlers who worked at nearby sawmills along
False Creek at the time. The Vancouver Sikh temple's original structure was heavily influenced architecturally by the
Chief Khalsa Diwan temple in
Hong Kong, which was a common stopping-point for Sikhs on the journey to Canada. and the seventh at the
Paldi (
Vancouver Island) settlement, also in 1919. Early
Sikh pioneers also settled in the
Abbotsford area in 1905 and originally worked on farms and in the
lumber industry.
British Columbia industrialists were short of labour and thus Sikhs were able to get an early foothold at the turn of the 20th century in British Columbia. As with the large numbers of Japanese and Chinese workers already present in Canada, many
white workers resented those immigrants and directed their ill-will toward the Sikhs, who were easily recognized by their beards and
turbans.
Punjabis were accused of having a
caste system, an idea that goes against the foundations of
Sikhism. They were portrayed as being riddled with
trachoma and as being unclean in general. To strengthen these racist characterizations, a song called
White Canada Forever was created. All this eventually led to a boat of Sikhs arriving in Vancouver being sent to Victoria. In 1907, the year that
Buckam Singh came to British Columbia from Punjab at the age of fourteen,
race riots broke out in Vancouver between Whites and Asians (Chinese and Japanese). Punjabis were initially also targeted but “sent attacking white mobs fleeing” as majority of the Punjabis were former soldiers of the
Sikh regiment and
Punjab regiments, many of whom even after retirement and migrating to Canada, kept their service muskets and bayonets and at the minimum, daggers and swords in their households, often ceremonial religious swords which had been kept as sidearms during war. Most of the Sikhs in Canada in 1907 were retired British army veterans and their families. The first and only Sikh settlement in Canada,
Paldi, British Columbia was established as a mill town in 1916. Though the objectives of the Khalsa Diwan Society were religious, educational and philanthropic, problems connected to immigration and racism loomed in its proceedings. Alongside the Sikh Diwan, other organizations were set up to counteract the policies of the immigration authorities. The United India League operated in Vancouver, and the Hindustani Association of the Pacific Coast opened in
Portland, Oregon. Gurdwaras became storm centres of political activity. The
Ghadar Party was founded in America in 1913 by Sikhs who had fled to California from British Columbia as a consequence of Canadian immigration rules. Despite originally being directed at the racism encountered by Sikhs in the
Sacramento Valley and in
Sacramento itself, it eventually moved to British Columbia. Thousands of Ghadar journals were published with some even being sent to India.
Komagata Maru incident '', 1914. Gurdit Singh wearing light coloured suit, white beard, left foreground. In 1908, a series of ordinances were passed by the federal government, by which Indian immigrants entering Canada had to have 200 Canadian dollars (vs. 25 for
Europeans). They also had to arrive directly from the area of birth/nationality- even though there was no direct route between India and Canada. Because of this legislation, in 1914, a Japanese ship called Komagata Maru chartered by a Sikh businessman which sailed from Hong Kong to Vancouver (with multiple stops) was not allowed to dock at the final port. The ship, which had 376 passengers (340 Sikhs), had to spend over 2 months offshore and only 20 former Canadian residents were allowed to disembark. In 1914, Buckam Singh moved to Toronto. Also in 1914,
Gurdit Singh Sandhu, from
Sarhali, Amritsar, was a well-to-do businessman in Singapore who was aware of the problems that
Punjabis were having in getting to Canada due to exclusion laws. He initially wanted to circumvent these laws by hiring a boat to sail from Calcutta to Vancouver. His aim was to help his compatriots whose journeys to Canada had been blocked. In order to achieve his goal, Gurdit Singh purchased the
Komagata Maru, a Japanese vessel. Gurdit Singh carried 340
Sikhs, 24
Muslims, and 12
Hindus in his boat to Canada. '' (furthest ship on the left) When the ship arrived in Canada, it was not allowed to dock. The
Conservative Premier of British Columbia,
Richard McBride, issued a categorical statement that the passengers would not be allowed to disembark. Meanwhile, a "Shore Committee" had been formed with the participation of Hussain Rahim and Sohan Lal Pathak. Protest meetings were held in Canada and the USA. At one, held in Dominion Hall, Vancouver, it was resolved that if the passengers were not allowed off, Indo-Canadians should follow them back to India to start a rebellion (or Ghadar). The shore Committee raised $22,000
dollars as an instalment on chartering the ship. They also launched a test case legal battle in the name of Munshi Singh, one of the passengers. Further, the
Khalsa Diwan Society (founded 1907 to manage Vancouver's gurudwara) offered to pay the 200 dollar admittance fee for every passenger, which was denied. The names of these men are as follows. • Sunta Gougersingh •
Buckam Singh • Harnom Singh • John Singh • Lashman Singh • Ram Singh • Sewa Singh • Waryam Singh Buckam Singh enlisted with the
Canadian Expeditionary Force in the spring of 1915. Buckam Singh was one of the earliest known Sikhs living in Ontario at the time as well as one of only 9 Sikhs known to have served with Canadian troops in the
First World War. Private Buckam Singh served with the 20th Canadian Infantry Battalion in the battlefields of
Flanders during 1916. Here, Buckam Singh was wounded twice in battle and later received treatment at a hospital run by one of Canada's most famous soldier poets the Doctor Lt. Colonel
John McCrae. While recovering from his wounds in
England, Private Buckam Singh contracted
tuberculosis and spent his final days in a Kitchener, Ontario military hospital, dying at age 25 in 1919. His grave in Kitchener is the only known First World War Sikh Canadian soldier's grave in Canada. Despite being forgotten for ninety years and never getting to see his family again, Buckam Singh is now being celebrated as not only a Sikh hero, but a Canadian hero.
Growing government support , British Columbia, late 1920s Due to immigration restrictions, South Asians were not able to bring their relatives from India to Canada. Therefore, they resorted to illegal means to bring them to Canada. This was through the Washington-British Columbia border. When the
Canadian Government became aware of the happenings along the borderline, they tightened immigration regulations and South Asian men who stayed even three days longer outside of Canada were denied entrance for violating the three-year limit. In 1937, a controversy surfaced with there being almost three hundred illegal South Asian immigrants in
BC. The case was investigated by the
RCMP who had eventually solved the case. The Canadian government, however, decided to take this as an opportunity to negotiate with India and refused to deport illegal Sikh immigrants. In fact, the Canadian government pushed the Sikhs into gaining residency in Canada. During the 1940s, South Asians in Canada began to establish their livelihoods despite deep social and economic disturbances. Unemployment was common and the average British Columbian's wage had dropped over 20 percent. White employers were willing to accept Asian workers, this produced insecurities amongst the mainstream community of British Columbia. The result of this was a British Columbia minimum wage law, a law that was ultimately flawed. 25 percent of the employees would be paid 25 percent less and these were invariably Asians. South Asians continued to live under one roof and in extensive families; this support helped them during the Depression period. In 1943, a twelve-man delegation including members of the
Khalsa Diwan Society presented the case of South Asian voting rights to Premier Hart. They said that without the ability to vote, in Canada they were nothing more than second-class citizens. The Premier then made it so that South Asians in British Columbia that had fought in World War II would be granted voting rights, this law was passed in 1945. By 1947, all South Asians had the right to vote due to the Sikh Khalsa Diwan Society. In 1944, a
Khalsa Diwan Society survey showed there to be 1,756 Canadian Sikhs with 98% of them (1,715) living in British Columbia, the initial major port of immigration for Canadian Sikhs. It was in the 1950s that major immigration to
Ontario would start to occur. The celebration of the birth of
Guru Nanak was first celebrated in 1954 after a group of Sikhs from England arrived because of the liberalization of the laws due to the acts of the Khalsa Diwan Society. The construction of many gurdwaras had an immense effect on the Sikh population in Ontario. Following the founding of the
East Indian Welfare Association by Sikhs, the first ever Sikh was elected to a city council in Mission, B.C. It was reported the following year that there were 2148 Sikhs in Canada.
Landmark political achievements A significant event in Sikh-Canadian history occurred in 1950 when 25 years after settling in Canada and nine years after moving to British Columbia from Toronto, Naranjan "Giani" Singh Grewall became the first Sikh individual in Canada and North America to be elected to public office after successfully running for a position on the board of commissioners in
Mission, BC against six other candidates. Grewall was re-elected to the board of commissioners in 1952 and by 1954, was elected to become mayor of Mission. While by the 1950s, Sikh-Canadians had gained respect in business in British Columbia primarily for their work in owning sawmills and aiding the development of the provincial forestry industry, racism still existed especially in the upper echelons of society. As such, during the campaign period and in the aftermath of running for MLA in 1956, Grewall received personal threats, while the six mills he owned along with his house were all set ablaze by arsonists. Grewall Street in Mission was named in his honour.
New era at Guru Ravidass Temple, Vancouver , British Columbia , British Columbia In the 1960s and 1970s, tens of thousands of skilled Sikhs, some highly educated, settled across Canada, especially in the urban corridor from
Toronto to
Windsor. As their numbers grew, Sikhs established temporary
gurdwaras in every major city eastward to Montréal, with the first
gurdwara in Eastern Canada being made in 1965. These were followed in many instances by permanent gurdwaras and Sikh centres. Most cities now have several gurdwaras, each reflecting slightly different religious views, social or political opinions. Through them, Sikhs now have access to a full set of public observances. Central among these are Sunday prayer services, and in many communities the prayers are followed by
langar (a free meal) provided by members of the sangat (governing council of holy men) and the congregation. Near the end of the decade in 1979, the Canadian Sikhs, now more racially diverse, celebrated the 500th birthday of
Guru Amar Das to mark the start of the annual Nagar Kirtan's, which would occur in Canada every year following. The Khalsa Diwan Society grew to a much larger amount during the immigration boom of this period. To celebrate the centennial birthday of the guru, the Khalsa Diwan Society purchased an adjoined building which included a school, museum, daycare and Gurdwara and named it after Guru Amar Das. In the early 1980s, the Khalsa Diwan Society grew slightly more and built a sports complex. Canada would also have its first officially registered Sikh organization, the Federation of Sikh Societies of Canada in the early 1980s. In the months prior to
Operation Blue Star, Sikh seats were granted to the
University of British Columbia and the
University of Toronto. The launching of
Operation Bluestar enraged many Sikhs in Canada, who had left their homeland long ago in search of better prospects. In 1986, following the British Columbia provincial election,
Moe Sihota became the first Sikh-Canadian to be elected to provincial parliament. Sihota, who was born in
Duncan, British Columbia in 1955, ran as the NDP Candidate in the riding of
Esquimalt-Port Renfrew two years after being involved in municipal politics, as he was elected as an
Alderman for the city of
Esquimalt in 1984.
Civil unrest In 1986, it was allowed by the Metro Toronto Police to have Sikhs wear turbans while on duty. Later that year, the Khalsa Credit Union was also established. In 1988, for the first time, the Canadian Parliament broached the topic of Operation Bluestar in regards to the Canadian Sikh population. In 1993, the Vancouver Punjabi Market was recognized as bilingual signs in English and Punjabi were established due to the high Sikh population in the area. In 1993, Sikhs were denied entry to the
Royal Canadian Legion when invited to attend a Remembrance Day Parade. In 1995, the Canadian government officially recognized the Vaisakhi Nager Kirtan parade. Due to this, the civil unrest eventually began to fade as more and more cities outside of British Columbia and Ontario began to join in on the parades, including
Montreal in 1998.
2000s–present Centennial year In 2002, the
Gur Sikh Temple was designated a national historic landmark by Prime Minister
Jean Chrétien on July 26, 2002. It is the only gurdwara declared a national historic landmark outside of South Asia. In Canada, a large protest in
Edmonton took place on March 25, six days prior to the pending execution. On the day before his impending execution, 5000 Sikhs walked in front of Parliament Hill in the capital city of
Ottawa. That same day, an announcement was made that Rajoana's hanging would be stayed. Many members of the
Canadian Parliament supported the Sikh rallies and their protests against the death penalty in India. These politicians included, but were not limited to,
Justin Trudeau,
Parm Gill,
Jasbir Sandhu,
Wayne Marston,
Don Davies,
Kirsty Duncan and
Jim Karygiannis. Around this time, a group of
Skinheads called "Blood and Honour" would attack two Sikh men in
Edmonton. To celebrate the 2012
Vaisakhi festival, the local Sikh community decided to sponsor a new Canadian Army Cadet Corps, which was being formed by the Department of National Defence. Whilst happening on April 13 in 2012, Vaisakhi was celebrated in Vancouver on April 14. The Vancouver Sun made their estimation of the Metro Vancouver Sikh population to be at 200,000 during an article about the 2012 Vaisakhi. The Vancouver Vaisakhi ended up attracting thousands of people as well as various politicians including BC Premier
Christy Clark. At the April 21 Surrey Vaisakhi, the Sikh peoples demonstrated support for Rajoana through various posters, with large banners calling India the world's largest democracy. The response to the support was positive. Around this time, Sikh comedians Jasmeet Singh (
JusReign), and
Lilly Singh (Superwoman) would gain international fame for their videos on
YouTube. In May 2012, the classic Victoria Gurdwara, which was once broken down, but later rebuilt, would experience its one hundredth anniversary. It was the second Gurdwara to celebrate one hundred years in Canada after the Gur Sikh Temple in the Sikhs' Centennial Year. The Gurdwara houses over 3000 people per month. It was then announced that Sikhs would be allowed to wear kirpans in Toronto courthouses. In June, a Khalsa School in Brampton would be vandalized by racists who would put up signs of the
Ku Klux Klan and with
swastikas. Soon after this statement, neo-Nazi gunman Wade Michael Page would commence a shooting at a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin, America, which would be described as a domestic terrorism act. Despite the fact that the shooting occurred outside of Canada, Canadian Sikhs would take full responsibility to spread the message of Sikhism, explain the religion, honour the dead and wounded as well as give their reactions to the shootings.
Stephen Harper is pushing back at suggestions that Ottawa needs to do more about Sikh separatist activity in Canada, saying his government already keeps a sharp lookout for terrorist threats and that merely advocating for a Khalistan homeland in the Punjab is not a crime. He said violence and terrorism can't be confused with the right of Canadians to hold and promote their political views. Following, on
CKNW's Philip Till Show would feature Dave Foran, a man who would demand Canadian Sikhs to lose their religious aspects, namely turbans, beards, clothes and "waddling" while walking, claiming the features to make "real" Canadians "sick".
New age 2013 was a monumental year for Sikhs as the April of that year was declared the
Sikh Heritage Month by the Government of Ontario. In 2014, history was made when a park in
Calgary was named after Harnam Singh Hari, the first Sikh settler who was able to successfully farm on fertile land in
Alberta. This happened shortly after the announcement of Quebec's Charter of Values, which threatened the use of religious items at government workplaces. This Charter was opposed by the Sikhs, Hindus, Jews, Christians, and Muslims whose symbols would be affected by the charter. In May 2014,
Lieutenant Colonel Harjit Sajjan became the first Sikh to command a Canadian regiment, ironically it was the
British Columbia Regiment (Duke Connaught's Own), which opposed the Komagata Maru a century prior. In 2015, the
Surrey Nagar Kirtan was declared the largest parade of its kind outside of India. In August 2015,
Corporal Tej Singh Aujla of the 39th Brigade Group,
Royal Westminster Regiment became the first Sikh soldier to guard and watch over the "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier" at Canada's National War Memorial. In regards to the
2015 Canadian election, it was internationally noted that in over twelve constituencies Sikh politicians were riding against each other, a highlight of the successful integration of the Sikh populace as Canadian citizens. It was also noted that of these politicians, Martin Singh was a Caucasian convert to Sikhism and potentially the first "white" Sikh to run for a constituency in the federal elections. In the 2015 Canadian election, twenty Sikh MPs were elected, the most ever. Of these, four Sikh MPs went on to become a part of the
Cabinet of Canada under Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau. This marked the first time the Cabinet of Canada had more Sikhs as ministers than the
Cabinet of India. This disparity was acknowledged by Trudeau in March 2016. Of these MPs,
Bardish Chagger ended up becoming the first Sikh woman to hold a post in the Cabinet of the Prime Minister. Also, MP Lt. Col. (ret.) Harjit Singh Sajjan became the first
Amritdhari Sikh to hold a Cabinet position since the
Sikh Empire as
Minister of National Defence. That same year, Punjabi became the third most spoken language of the Parliament of Canada. Concurrently, many Canadian Sikhs held solidarity with the protests of Sikhs in India following the sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib. Many Sikh organizations in Canada held discussions on how to address the situation in regards to Canada. Many Canadian Sikh youths took to
Twitter to protest the sacrilege with the hashtag #SikhLivesMatter. On April 11, 2016, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that a formal apology for the Komagata Maru incident would finally be given after 102 years. In 2016 Dr. Mohan Singh Virick, a Punjabi
Sikh doctor who served Indigenous people in Cape Breton for 50 years, donated 140 hectares (335 acres) of land to
Eskasoni First Nation. He also donated a building in Sydney to help house Eskasoni's growing population. On October 1, 2017,
Jagmeet Singh, was elected leader of the federal
New Democratic Party on the first ballot of that party's
2017 leadership race. Upon his election, Singh became the first Sikh and the first person of a visible minority group to be elected leader of a Canadian federal political party. Previously, Singh had also held the distinction of being the first turban-wearing Sikh to sit as a provincial legislator in Ontario. At the
2019 Canadian federal election The NDP won 24 seats, down from 44 seats at the 2015 election. It was the lowest seat count for the NDP since 2004. The NDP lost all but one of its seats in Quebec, where it was suggested that Singh's Sikhism may have been negatively received by voters in the context of the
Quebec ban on religious symbols. After the
2025 Canadian federal election Singh announced that he would step down as party leader
Relations with indigenous peoples In the early 20th century, Sikh and other Punjabi migrants to the
West Coast of Canada referred to the
indigenous peoples as
Taae Ke (
Punjabi term meaning "elder uncle's family" or "cousin"), a sign of respect and due to the early-migrants seeing similarities between themselves and the native peoples. Some of the early Sikh settlers saw the native peoples as "cousins". In-remembrance,
Khalsa Aid donated $200,000 to the Ahousaht First Nation in 2018 and hosted a gala event in Vancouver Island which was attended by both Sikhs and Ahousahts. During the
Komagatu Maru incident, the
Musqueam people helped the passengers to survive by paddling out in canoes to give them food and other supplies. However, the veracity of the story has been questioned by Ali Kazimi of York University, Hugh Johnston of Simon Fraser University, and Anne Murphy of the University of British Columbia, as the Komagatu Maru incident was heavily documented as a historical event and the tale does not find mention in official archives. However, Susan Roy and Naveen Girn affirm the tale's possibility of occurring, as it may derive from oral histories and was not captured in official records of the event. The story originates from early Sikh Canadian history recorded by Giani Kesar Singh, who interviewed people on-board at the time who recalled indigenous paddlers coming up to the boat, with the identify of the aboriginal nation that these paddlers belonged to being hypothized as being Musqueam due to the geographical region the event supposedly occurred but they may have also been Squamish or Tsleil-Waututh. A 4,000-square foot mural titled
Taike-Sye’yə was painted on the side of the former Harry Stevens Federal Building in East Vancouver in 2019 to commemorate this. == Demography ==