IREK Kusmierczyk, MP for Windsor—Tecumseh, Ontario, in a rousing speech in the House of Commons on Monday assured Sikh Canadians that Canada will pursue the truth and bring justice for the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar who was assassinated last June in the parking lot of Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara where he served as president.

Kusmierczyk, who is Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages, noted that his own father was imprisoned in communist Poland back in 1981 for fighting for the rights of workers.

He said: “Like so many immigrants, my family came to Canada to flee oppression, to flee political persecution,” adding: “that is the dream for millions of immigrants and new Canadians and that dream has been shattered with the news of the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.”

He pointed out that Canada is the best home for the largest proportion of Sikhs on the planet – “more than in India, more than in the United States, more than any other nation in the world.”

He said: “We think of the many vibrant Sikh communities that now exist across Canada – in Vancouver, Surrey, Brampton, Calgary and Montreal and many, many more cities.”

Here is the rest of his speech:

And with each passing day more and more Sikh Canadians are calling my community of Windsor-Tecumseh their home. They design and build cars at Stellantis and Ford. Sikhs care for seniors and residents at Windsor Regional and Hotel-Dieu Grace hospitals. They open businesses and restaurants and share their culture and tradition with us.

On County Road #42 there sits a beautiful gurdwara where Sikhs in my community have gathered for more than two decades. It is a place of peaceful worship. It is a place of community where families come together, where young Sikh Canadians go to Punjabi school and attend Khalsa camp in the summers, where international students come to share in a meal and get a taste of home, where in fact the community prepares meals for each another, where they prepare meals for the hungry and homeless in my community, where they prepare meals for visitors like myself.

I’ve been to the gurdwara many times to celebrate Vaisakhi, to light a candle for Diwali, to share in the grief when three international students from St. Clair College lost their lives in a tragic car crash, to speak with the incredible truck drivers that day after day deliver the food, the medicines and the car parts that make our community go.

More recently, I visited this summer with my friend, the honourable member from Brampton West, the Minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Persons with Disabilities, and herself a Sikh, to meet with young Sikh Canadians attending Khalsa camp. On another occasion, the Minister of Housing and the Minister of Defence joined me at the gurdwara – three ministers – a Sikh, A Muslim and a Hindu – all welcomed warmly at the gurdwara. Madame Speaker, that is the best of what Canada is about.

Think, for even one second, that a member of my community – my community – could be killed just steps away from the gurdwara for their political belief by a foreign agent working for a foreign country is abhorrent to me and it is an offence to every single Canadian who believes in democracy, freedom of speech and in the sovereignty of our laws and our country, Canada.

But this is not new. For Sikh Canadians, such intimidation is not new. In the last 24 hours I’ve had a chance to speak with members of my Sikh community and they tell me the same thing. They worry. They worry that as they protest the treatment of farmers in Punjab, that they or their families could be targeted.

I see protests and rallies on Parliament Hill almost every single day for all sorts of issues. Just today, I attended a union rally calling for the elimination of replacement workers – which we will. Peaceful protest is what Canada is all about. It is how we expand our freedom. It is how we improve quality of life for all of our citizens, and I cannot imagine someone fearing for their life because they are expressing their political view.

But here we are. My family knows this fear. Back in the old country, in Poland, my father was a local leader of the Solidarity Movement that fought for the rights of workers in communist Poland. And just after midnight on December 13, 1981, the police came to our doors and arrested my father. Thousands of Solidarity leaders were rounded up and imprisoned. For weeks, we did not know whether my father was alive or dead, all because he dared to speak up and stand up for justice and for rights.

Like so many immigrants, my family came to Canada to flee oppression, to flee political persecution. Canada accepted my family as political refugees and gave us safe harbour. That is the dream for millions of immigrants and new Canadians and that dream has been shattered with the news of the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

I had a chance tonight to speak with the family of Mr. Nijjar who call my community home. To you and to all Sikh Canadians, including those back home in Windsor-Tecumseh, we stand with you in solidarity.

The Sikh faith compels us to speak out against injustice and so we must and so we will. We will pursue the truth. We will bring justice. But let us do so together — united as Canadians.

Windsor is a city in southwestern Ontario, directly across from Detroit, Michigan. The Detroit–Windsor urban area is North America’s most populous trans-border conurbation, and the Ambassador Bridge border crossing is the busiest commercial crossing on the Canada–United States border, according to Wikipedia. Windsor is a major contributor to Canada’s automotive industry and is culturally diverse.