On­tario grants hel­met exemption to Turbaned Sikh Motorcyclists

On­tario state of Canada has announced Helmet Exemption to Tur­baned Sikh mo­tor­cy­clists.

The provin­cial gov­ern­ment made this announcement in re­sponse to a bill in­tro­duced by the young and dy­namic newly elected MPP Prab­meet Singh Sarkaria.  In­stead of pass­ing the new leg­is­la­tion, the gov­ern­ment has how­ever cho­sen to pro­vide the ex­emp­tion through a reg­u­la­tion announced by it.

Af­ter British Co­lum­bia, Man­i­toba and Al­berta, the province of On­tario be­comes the fourth province in Canada to ex­empt tur­baned Sikhs from mo­tor­cy­cle hel­met
re­quire­ments.

The World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion has wel­comed the de­vel­op­ment. It was the WSO which in­ter­vened in 2010 in the R. V. Bade­sha case where Baljin­der Singh Bade­sha chal­lenged On­tar­i­o’s mo­tor­cy­cling hel­met re­quire­ments for Sikhs.  Though Mr. Bade­sha’s ap­peal was un­suc­cess­ful, the court said in its de­ci­sion that noth­ing pre­cluded the gov­ern­ment from vol­un­tar­ily pro­vid­ing tur­baned Sikh rid­ers with the ex­emp­tion.

WSO Pres­i­dent Mukhbir Singh said to­day, “we wel­come to­day’s an­nounce­ment by the On­tario gov­ern­ment. The hel­met ex­emp­tion for Sikh mo­tor­cy­clists in On­tario has been a long time com­ing.”

He fur­ther said, “There has been no im­pact on road safety due to the ex­emp­tions for Sikh rid­ers in British Co­lum­bia, Man­i­toba and Al­berta.  Any in­creased safety risk by de­clin­ing to wear a hel­met is borne di­rectly by the in­di­vid­ual mak­ing the choice to do so. While not every­one may agree with the de­ci­sion to wear a tur­ban in­stead of a hel­met, giv­ing Sikhs the right to make that de­ci­sion re­flects the im­por­tance of free­dom of re­li­gion and choice to us as a so­ci­ety”

Con­ser­v­a­tive Party pre­mier Doug Ford in a me­dia state­ment has said, “The safety of our roads will al­ways re­main a pri­or­ity, but our gov­ern­ment also be­lieves that in­di­vid­u­als have per­sonal ac­count­abil­ity and re­spon­si­bil­ity with re­spect to their own well-be­ing.”

The Sikh Mo­tor­cy­cle club of On­tario has wel­comed the de­ci­sion and has said that

“now we can ride with pride.”

It should also be men­tioned that Ray­nald Marc­hand, an ex­pert in mo­tor­cy­cle safety with the Cana­dian Safety Coun­cil has cau­tioned that tur­ban-wear­ing Sikhs may be granted ex­emp­tion only af­ter they ob­tain a full li­cense and not dur­ing their train­ing to get the li­cense.