EDMONTON - A Sikh worker is headed home to the United Kingdom after he was ordered off a job site in Alberta for refusing to shave his beard.

"I've never, ever been treated like this anywhere else I've been around the world - I'm completely stunned," said 24-year-old Av Singh, who was hired for an eight-week stint as a turbine adviser at a TransAlta Corp. plant west of Edmonton.

He's now heading home three weeks early, after a safety supervisor told him Friday his beard would not allow him to properly wear a protective mask.

He was given the choice of shaving or leaving. Removing the beard is against his religious beliefs, so Singh refused the razor and instead hired a human-rights lawyer.

"I don't know what it's going to achieve, but I don't think it's fair the way I got treated," he said.

The incident comes less than a month after the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled on a similar case involving a Canadian Sikh man who refused to shave his beard for work at a Syncrude Canada site in Fort McMurray, Alta.

The court granted that man the right to have his human-rights complaint go to a hearing.

Singh said when he first started at the plant the company gave him a test to ensure the gas mask formed an adequate seal around his face.

"I passed the test with flying colours," he said. "The seal was perfect."

TransAlta spokesman Michael Lawrence said the safety supervisor was worried Singh's beard had grown too long over the five weeks since he started the job.

Singh said he wants an apology from TransAlta for infringing on his religious rights.

In the meantime, he plans to let his lawyer pursue the case and his firm has refused to send TransAlta a replacement adviser.

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