Toronto: As per the media reports emanating from Canada a Sikh police officer was denied promotion into senior ranks due to his different race and cultural origin.
The officer named Staff sergeant Baljiwan Sandhu, with 28 years of service with the Peel police force, had sought a promotion to inspector in 2013, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
In a statement given by Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario in which it reportedly said that not only he had been denied a promotion but that Peel Regional Police did not consider the portion of work in diversity relations as “real police work”.
“The applicant’s race, ancestry, place of origin, and/or ethnic origin were factors in his failure to be recommended for promotion in February 2013, and as such I find that the applicant has been subject to discrimination because of race,” in violation of the Ontario Human Rights Code, reads a quote from a statement given by tribunal adjudicator Bruce Best while interacting with the media.
“My client was harassed since he was a cadet in 1989 — including an alleged incident in which fellow officers asked whether anyone ordered a cab when they saw Baljiwan Sandhu. It was the fact that his superiors did not value the work they had assigned him that prompted the complaint in 2013,” Barry Swardon his lawyer was quoted saying by Hindustan Times (HT).
The tribunal found that the officer’s cultural and linguistic background resulted in his superiors routinely seconding him for assignments involving the South Asian community, media sources said.
“The superiors in his particular case said that the work he did in diversity where he was an absolute star didn’t really count because it wasn’t real police work,” Berry Swardon further added to his statement.