Canada News : more than 100 Sikh guards lose job over clean shave rule

Canada-based The Globe and Mail reports that over 100 Sikh men who were working as security guards in the Toronto were laid off for not complying with the city’s ‘clean-shave policy'.

The ‘clean-shave policy’ is termed as a part of the city’s Covid-19 guidelines announced in January this year which requires employees to be clean shaved so as to ensure that their N95 respirators are properly fitted.

The World Sikh Organisation of Canada said that the city’s policy has resulted in the “exclusion of Sikh security guards who maintain uncut hair as a tenet of their faith.”

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They said that the rule has been announced post the peak pandemic period in 2020-21 and comes at a time when restrictions are being relaxed in the rest of the country.

After uproar, the the city administration has directed that all those who were laid off for this reason be reinstated.

But the Sikh group said it will continue to strive till every Sikh security guard is rehired and rightly paid.