Skip to content

Sikh Motorcycle Club rides through Surrey to ‘save our kids’

Bikes hit Surrey streets in effort to push leaders to do more to combat drug, gun violence
8145484_web1_SikhMC
Photo from Sikh Motorcycle Club of B.C.’s Facebook page (Facebook.com/SikhMotorcycleClubBC).

SURREY — More than 100 motorcycles hit Surrey streets Wednesday afternoon in an effort to press Surrey’s leaders to do more to protect children from the drug and gun violence that persists in the city.

The “Save Our Kids” rally organized by the Sikh Motorcycle Club of B.C. went “very smoothly and exactly as planned,” according to spokesman Ajad Sidhu.

He said the “peaceful” protest called for “intense and immediate intervention” from Surrey’s leaders. It aimed to “wake up the administration, council, that something urgently needs to be done.”

The two-hour ride began at Scott Road and 72nd Avenue at the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara at 4:30 p.m. It weaved back and forth throughout the city, including a drive past Surrey City Hall, and it ended at the Surrey RCMP detachment just off of Highway 10.

“All the people were engaging, honking, thumbs up” said Sidhu. “I think people are supporting because they know and they want to be safe. If you go get a coffee at 9 o’clock at Tim Hortons, you don’t want to get shot.”

Sidhu said “somebody had to come out and do this” and the club felt it was its “duty to the community to speak up.”

The ride ended with a group of about 20 children, aged eight to 16, handing a letter to the RCMP addressed to Chief Superintendent Dwayne McDonald, Officer in Charge of Surrey RCMP.

The message?

“The general message was basically the violence is going on for a long time…. why is Surrey targeted?” explained Sidhu. “Why is Surrey having more shootings, more gun violence? The schools need to be protected, all the high schools are roamed around by the drug dealers and that’s a major problem. A lot of those kids can’t go out late and enjoy a cup of coffee somewhere because the stray bullets are all over the place now. This needs to be addressed, this is not some third world country.”

Sidhu said he worries about allowing his children to go to a BBQ or a friend’s house, even if he knows the parents of the home because “one wrong decision, wrong bad apple can ruin it all. It’s a fear in our mind.”

He added: “A bullet doesn’t see race, gender, anything.”

In a release prior to the rally, the club said the “lack of RCMP’s presence and accountability in and around our schools and the youth social programs has exposed a generation of children to an unsafe and lawless atmosphere. We now want the RCMP to take immediate responsibility of making amends and attending to the glaring short-comings. Increased, effective and collaborative surveillance is required across the city but more so around the schools where the introduction to drugs is made.”

amy.reid@surreynowleader.com