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| Young kids prepare to sing on their float during Vaisakhi parade in Vancouver, Photograph by: Arlen Redekop |
Vaisakhi parade organizers say Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh and B.C. Liberal MLA Dave Hayer are not invited to attend the annual Surrey event — and if they do show up, they'll be responsible for their own safety.
Inderjit Singh Bains, an organizer of the parade, made the comments Thursday morning on The Gurvinder Dhaliwal Show on the Sher-E-Punjab radio station.
Both Dosanjh and Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts lodged complaints with the RCMP Thursday after being contacted by The Vancouver Sun, which obtained an English transcript of the radio show commentary.
In a telephone interview later, Bains said it was the decision of the committee organizing the parade not to invite Dosanjh or Hayer and, therefore, it was not the organizers' responsibility to ensure the politicians' safety if they decide to attend.
No one else's security would be an issue at the parade, he added.
"Just only two persons," said Bains. "Everybody else is no problem."
He noted on the radio show that all the floats in Saturday's parade will carry the flag of Khalistan, and display photos of "Sikh martyrs."
Dosanjh, a moderate who has distanced himself from such fundamentalist views, is a longtime critic of Sikh extremism who was severely injured in a February 1985 beating by a suspected member of the International Sikh Youth Federation, a banned terrorist group.
He said he has never been to the parade and has no plans to go.
However, he has lodged complaints with the RCMP's protective services unit and the RCMP detachment in Richmond, where the radio station is located.
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| Liberal MP for Vancouver South Ujjal Dosanjh on seven new MPs for B.C.:
"This is good for British Columbia, I think it's good for Alberta, and obviously good for the country" Photograph by: Vancouver Sun |
"I'm somewhat shocked and disappointed that they would issue what appears to be implicit threats against people like myself, who are absolutely peace-loving," Dosanjh said in an interview from Ottawa.
"This is intimidation and I don't believe in this day and age a Canadian parliamentarian... should have to put up with these nonsensical threats."
Gurvinder Dhaliwal, the host of the radio show on which Bains was speaking, denied the comments were meant to be a threat.
He recalled Bains saying that Dosanjh and Hayer were not invited because they create controversy by making negative statements about slogans in the parade.
If they attended the parade and had disagreements with people of different viewpoints, then it would be up to the politicians to settle those disputes, Dhaliwal recalled Bains saying on his show.
"If [Dosanjh and Hayer] want to come they can come, but their safety and security, they are [responsible] for that because organizers and all the people are not happy with them and their statements," Dhaliwal said.
Watts called that position nonsense, and contacted RCMP Chief Supt. Fraser MacRae, head of the Surrey detachment, who has planned a meeting today with parade officials.
City hall staff has been working for a year on the popular parade, and organizers have vowed there would be no problems or controversial floats, Watts said.
She said she did not know Bains, and that he was not one of the people city hall had been speaking with about the parade.
"This is absolute nonsense where the rhetoric gets ramped up right before the event," she said.
"This is something that will not be tolerated. This is a community event... not a political event."
She said there were no problems at the parade last year and she does not fear for her own safety while attending it.
Hayer — son of Indo-Canadian Times publisher Tara Singh Hayer, who was gunned down in 1998 while he was on the Air India witness list — also vowed to file a police complaint.
"These roads the parades go on are public roads, paid for by the taxpayers. They can maybe have their own personal views inside the temple, but once they go in a public place they have to respect the Canadian Charter of Rights," Hayer said.
"To me, what [Bains] has done is try to promote people to cause problems at the parade rather than try to unite the people and show respect.
"It's always shocking to me. When you look at the birth of Khalsa, Vaisakhi Day is something to celebrate cultures and celebrate religion instead of trying to damage the reputation of the Sikh community."
An estimated 80,000 people attend the Vaisakhi parade each year in Surrey, making it one of the largest outside India. Vaisakhi Day marks both the new year and the anniversary of one of Sikhism's most important events, the establishment of Khalsa in 1699.
However, last year the organizers' stage included some controversial images, such as posters depicting the assassins of former Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi as martyrs.