Edmonton park named after immigrant who was once told to ‘look more Canadian’ in job interview

An immigrant who was once told to “look more Canadian” in a job interview is now being honoured with an Edmonton park in his name.

“I feel very proud and very happy,” said 90-year-old former Canadian citizenship court judge Gurcharan Bhatia.

Earlier this month, the city named the park in the community of Blue Quill, The Jiti and Gurcharan Bhatia Park.

Community volunteer Zain Velji called the move inspirational.

“It really is a celebration of two unbelievable individuals — an unbelievable family — but it’s also a marker of what they fought for and what they struggled with,” said Community volunteer Zain Velji.

While Bhatia and his late wife are recognized for their outstanding work as human rights advocates, getting to this point wasn’t easy.

“The circumstances developed in India that I decided to move from India,” Bhatia said.

So the Bhatias immigrated to Canada in 1964 but getting a job wasn’t so simple.

But it was one particular job interview that changed everything.

“We would like to have you but there’s a very little problem,” Bhatia recalls the interviewer saying.

“I said, what is that problem? ‘You don’t look like a Canadian,'” Bhatia said.

Bhatia replied, ‘Well what does a Canadian look like?'”

From then on, he and his wife became human rights advocates.

After being a member of the Canadian human rights commission for eight years, he became the first person from a visible minority group to be appointed as a citizenship judge in Alberta.

“I talked to about 40,000 new immigrants and gave them the citizenship,” Bhatia said.

Bhatia said he took those moments to educate and instill Canadian values of inclusion and acceptance.

Those efforts, he hopes, will be reflected at the park that now bears his name.