Simcoe Park

Located on the former site of the Provincial Jail, Simcoe Park is a 3.8-acre neighbourhood park with a community garden, tennis courts, adventure playground, soccer field, benches, pathway, planters, open green space and views of the Fraser River. Ornamental landscaping includes large red oak trees which demarcate the original Simcoe Street right of way. The park is located at the corner of Eighth Street and Royal Avenue in New Westminster, B.C.

New Westminster's Simcoe Park has historic, cultural, social, spiritual and political value for the South Asian community, primarily for its association with the Sikh martyr Bhai Mewa Singh Ji.

Simcoe Park is highly significant to B.C.'s South Asian community because it is the site of the former Provincial Jail, the location of Bhai Mewa Singh Ji's incarceration and execution. Mewa Singh was tried and convicted of shooting an immigration inspector in 1915, motivated by the ongoing inflammatory actions, surveillance and persecution by officials with the federal Immigration Department. These acts were undertaken by immigration officials against suspected Indian nationalists who were considered to be a threat to British rule in India.

Simcoe Park is significant because it represents an extreme expression of the South Asian immigrant experience in B.C. Arriving in Canada in 1906, Mewa Singh was typical of many male Punjabi Sikh immigrants who were attracted to B.C. by relatively high wages, mostly as labourers in the lumber industry. This was also a period during which racism and discrimination against non-white immigrants was at its peak. The 1907 anti-Asian riots in Vancouver culminated in the implementation of the "Continuous Passage" law of 1908 that effectively blocked Indian immigration to Canada.

Mewa Singh is widely regarded by South Asian Canadians as an icon and martyr, both for voluntarily surrendering to authorities, and for his testimony at his trial which highlighted the racism and discrimination suffered by the South Asian Canadian community in B.C. While the site has connections to challenging history and figures associated with racial persecution, the historic place is important as a unifying factor in the South Asian Canadian community. It is a reminder of Mewa Singh's struggle for South Asian Canadian rights and as a symbol of perseverance.

The historic place is an important touchstone for expanding the dialogue surrounding Mewa Singh's death, and for supporting current debate on serious issues such as the nature of racism, human rights, historical commemoration, the role of religion in civil society and other significant and challenging topics.