The organization said Monday it wants to see the city compensate and reinstate the roughly 100 bearded Sikh guards who lost their jobs as a result. The WSO said the city has required security guards, who work for contractors such as GardaWorld, ASP Security and Star World, to wear N95 masks while on the job in gathering places such as recreation centers since January. The city has confirmed that employees and contractors working with the Shelter, Support and Housing Agency (SSHA) department must wear an N95 mask and must shave so that the masks provide effective protection against the transmission of COVID-19. But the city said the WSO complaint comes from private contractors who can’t accommodate their own employees. Sikh security guards fight with the rule. “I feel very humiliated,” said Birkawal Singh Anand, who works for ASP Security. Anand says he applied for religious accommodation when he was told about the requirement last month, but was told it would mean he would be demoted to a lower position in the company with a lower salary as well. He said he had to choose between that, find a different job, get fired, or shave his beard. CBC News has contacted ASP Security and other companies with questions about how they implement the city’s policy. For Sikh devotees, leaving hair uncut is an important tenet of their faith, the WSO said. Balpreet Singh, a lawyer for the organization, said the Toronto rule feels particularly discriminatory because the policy is being implemented while almost all other pandemic restrictions have been lifted in Ontario — including most mask mandates. “These security guards served at the height of the pandemic without these rules, when things were at their worst,” Singh said. “But now that, you know, vaccines are so common and things are opening up, they’re being told, ‘No, you can’t serve here because you have a beard.’ Singh says he has been in repeated contact with city and council members. He said he sent a formal letter to the city on June 7 to “work with the security contractors to find a solution.”
The City says it is reviewing the situation
The City of Toronto said in an emailed statement that it is aware of the WSO’s complaint and said all affected workers are employed by contractors and not by its own corporate safety department. The city said the SSHA policy allows accommodations for city employees, but contractor employees seeking accommodations should evaluate their requests “against the contractors’ own human rights policies.” WSO’s Singh said his organization has tried to work with contractors and contact the city in recent months to come up with alternatives to keep the Sikh guards on the job and keep them healthy, but those efforts have been met with “nothing more than platitudes”. Singh said his organization will consider legal action if there is no change. “This is clearly a violation of human rights in Ontario,” he said.
