Rashpal Sehmby immigrated from India to the Northwest Territories as a child in 1974 where his dad had been hired as a mechanic at Cominco’s lead-zinc mine in Pine Point. The family moved to Edmonton in 1987, a year before the Cominco mine closed. After high school, Sehmby worked several jobs before joining Canada Post in 1999, and soon after became a Canadian Union of Postal Workers activist. He also served as an interim organizer for Service Employees International Union, focusing on elderly Punjabi-origin janitors at Bee Clean in Edmonton.
In this excerpt from a longer interview with the Alberta Labour History Institute (1), Sehmby describes how extended families that have immigrated from India often live together to support each other, but notes that he lived on his own in Jasper Place for a few years in the late 1980s when certain areas of Jasper Place were known to be dangerous and scary. He mentions that he seemed to be the only East Indian person in the area around where he lived, and that he noticed little cultural diversity.
Sehmby was asked if he was aware of an incident in November 1987 when a turban-wearing Sikh cancelled plans to attend his wife’s staff Christmas party at the Jasper Place Legion on 156th Street after he learned he’d be denied access because of his turban. Rashpal indeed remembered the incident and describes his father’s reaction in the video clip below.
Raminder Singh, the Sikh who would have been barred from the Jasper Place Legion in 1987, made a complaint of discrimination to the Alberta Human Rights Commission following the incident, and a board of inquiry upheld the complaint in 1990 (2). Following the ruling, the Jasper Place Legion changed its dress code bylaws to read, as reported in The Edmonton Journal, “…’headdress’ is allowed if it’s part of a costume at Klondike Days, protected by law or authorized by management” (3).
During the interview, Sehmby also describes the numerous ways he participates in organizing drives for community groups.
(1) Interview of Rashpal Sehmby, May 13, 2022. Courtesy of the Alberta Labour History Institute.
(2) Singh v. Royal Canadian Legion, Jasper Place (Alberta) Branch No. 255 (1990), 11 CHRR D/357 (Alta. Bd. Inq.) [PDF available here, Courtesy of the Canadian Human Rights Reporter]
(3) Marina Jimenez, Local legions undecided: Legionnaires expected to disagree on headgear ruling, Edmonton Journal, July 11, 1994, p. 11.
