SURREY — Members of the Sikh Motorcycle Club of B.C. will ride through Surrey today “to express the voice of our community to save our kids from drugs and gun violence.”
The rally is scheduled to start at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday (Aug. 16) at Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara and travel through parts of Newton and Whalley before coming to an end at the RCMP station off Highway 10.
There will be 70-plus motorcycles and community members in cars as well, the club said in an email sent to news outlets this morning.
“We need your intense and immediate intervention to make our city a safe place for our families,” the club says.
“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.”
“We want our city to be considered as a reputed city again and where our children can feel safe and secure,” the email continued. “Your contribution is the needed ingredient for this outcome. Neighboring municipalities appear to be safer than Surrey streets. Street-level drug dealing needs to be addressed urgently. Please actively assist as we are counting on you.”
According to a post on its website, the club came about “due to the efforts of Mr. Avtar Singh Dhillon, who on July 7th 1999, after many years of campaigning and educating governmental organizations, earned the right for practicing Sikhs who wear a turban to be exempt from mandatory helmet laws in the Province of British Columbia while riding a motorcycle.”