It’s Singh versus Singh in Canada polls this October
Friday, 14/08/2015
http://paper.hindustantimes.com/epaper/viewer.aspx
TORONTO: Canada, which created history by electing the western world’s first turbaned Sikh — Gurbax Singh Malhi — as a Member of Parliamant in 1993, may create another record by electing a first white Sikh MP in October 19 parliamentary elections.
Martin Singh ‘Paaji’, 42, who converted to Sikhism in 1991 and got baptised in 1993, is in the poll fray from Toronto’s neighbouring city of Brampton, which has the second largest concentration of Indians — mostly Punjabis — in Canada. This fast talking ‘gora’ or ‘white’ Sikh is the candidate from Brampton North for the opposition New Democratic Party (NDP).
Married to a Sikh girl from Amritsar, Martin Singh is pitted against two Sikhs — sitting MP Parm Gill of the ruling Conservative Party and Ruby Sahota of the Liberal Party.
“There are 21,000 Punjabis in my riding (constituency) and I am connecting with each,” says Martin Singh, who runs a pharmacy business. On why he converted to Sikhism, and he says: “Sikhism attracted me because Guru Nanak emphasised that ‘Naam japo, kirat karo, vand chhako’ (meditate, earn honest living by hard work and share). So, I embraced Sikhism in 1991.
“I first went to India in 1997, and met with the woman librarian of Religious Studies Department at Guru Nanak Dev University. The librarian was related to the Sikh family in Calgary. She introduced me to her niece Amandeep Kaur who had just finished her Masters in Punjabi literature from Punjabi University, Patiala. We got married in Amritsar.” Of the eight Indo-Canadian MPs in the outgoing House of Commons of 308 members, six were Sikhs.
In the upcoming elections, it is Sikh versus Sikh in over a dozen constituencies.
