Mississauga

Mississauga is a large city in Ontario, Canada. Three places and one vote explain why it matters to the Panth.

Key moments

• 1973: Ontario’s Sikh community buys a 1.9-acre farm at Dixie Road for a gurdwara, and from 1978 services are held in the farmhouse. Construction of a permanent building begins on 10 April 1982, and the 25,000 sq ft Ontario Khalsa Darbar, known as the Dixie Gurdwara, opens on 25 June 1989. By 13 July 1997 the site has grown to 110,000 sq ft, and a 135-foot Nishan Sahib goes up in 1998.
• Every year: Malton holds a Khalsa Day parade between the Sri Guru Singh Sabha gurdwara and the Sikh Spiritual Centre in Toronto’s Rexdale; Wikipedia gives about 100,000 people for 2011.
• Fall 2014: the Sikh Heritage Museum of Canada is established at 2980 Drew Road, Malton, to hold the history, religion and culture of Canadian Sikhs. On 26 February 2026 a fire and flood destroyed or damaged much of its collection, and the building has to be rebuilt.
• 6 November 2022: Sikhs for Justice holds the second phase of its Khalistan Referendum at the Paul Coffey Arena. People queued from 6 am, and the organisers say more than 75,000 Canadian Sikhs voted, after about 110,000 at the first phase in Brampton on 18 September. India’s External Affairs Ministry called the vote a “farcical exercise”, and Canada told India that peaceful and legitimate activity by Canadian Sikhs would not be stopped.

What it means today. Mississauga shows the diaspora’s institutions and its politics in one city: a gurdwara that took sixteen years from land purchase to opening, a museum that must be rebuilt after a fire, and a polling place for a vote that India rejects.