Canadian Media Questions Justin Trudeau’s India Move

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21st Sep, 2023. 12:27 am
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Trudeau alleges Indian government involvement in the death of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Concerns were raised about Trudeau’s quick public announcement before investigations were complete.
Some experts speculate this move is a response to criticism over transparency on China-related “foreign interference.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may have chosen to make the allegations against India public in response to mounting criticism directed at his government for its perceived lack of transparency regarding issues of “foreign interference” from China and its handling of national security matters.

Newspapers in the country have analyzed this situation. In an unusual step, Trudeau asserted that there were “credible accusations” linking the Indian government to the death of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen who had been accused of having ties to pro-Khalistan terrorism by the Indian government.

“For the first six months of this year, Trudeau and his team erred on the side of secrecy. For the last few months of this year, it appears they’ve decided to risk erring on the side of transparency,” analyzed Toronto Star’s Susan Delacourt, arguing that the Trudeau government was looking to avoid a rerun of its travails in the first half of 2023.

“For the first six months of this year, Trudeau’s government was battered by a constant barrage of media stories about foreign interference — mostly revolving around China. Some of them were single-sourced; some were problematic, according to the initial (and ill-fated) report from special rapporteur David Johnston. Yet in every case, Trudeau and his team seemed incapable of saying anything beyond the fact that they took the issue seriously. They were starting to look at best flat-footed, at worst incompetent,” she wrote in the opinion piece.

The article pointed out that the Canadian National Security Advisor, Jody Thomas, had said in an interview that the government was taking a hard look at whether secrecy was “too excessive” around the matter of foreign interference. “These were all signs that Trudeau’s government was starting to see hyper-security around intelligence as a political liability.”

The article referred to Trudeau as telling reporters on Tuesday that Canadians “have a right to know and need to know when things are going on like this, and that’s why we decided to do this”.

The Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper, featured a column authored by Brahma Chellaney, an Indian strategic analyst. In his column, Chellaney raised concerns about the swiftness with which Prime Minister Trudeau made the allegations public, especially when investigations into the matter had not yet concluded.

“A wiser approach would have been to charge all the suspects and present evidence of any Indian government involvement in a court of law. But with no arrests, let alone evidence, Mr. Trudeau has dealt a major blow to Ottawa’s bilateral relationship with New Delhi by echoing the allegations of Canadian Sikh extremists who have held India responsible from the day Mr. Nijjar was shot.”

Chellaney pointed out that India has “never been accused of assassinating on Western soil, even though it has long been the target of major international terrorist attacks”.

“India’s concerns about the operations of Sikh and Kashmiri terrorists from Anglosphere countries go back to the 1980s when an Indian diplomat was murdered in Birmingham in Britain and a bomb downed an Air India flight from Toronto, killing all 329 people on board,” he argued.

Another columnist from The Globe, Andrew Coyne, suggested that India might have had valid reasons to be displeased with Canada’s leniency toward Sikh separatists in the past, including Sikh terrorists. However, Coyne emphasized that this argument becomes irrelevant in the current context. He pointed out that regardless of whether Mr. Nijjar was merely a Sikh separatist or, as India claims, a terrorist, he was a Canadian citizen and entitled to the protections afforded by Canadian law. According to Coyne, the government of India had no authority to take his life or inflict harm on him in any way, neither in India nor in Canada.

Coyne wrote that the issue was not about sympathy for Nijjar or his aims but about the obligation of national governments to act within the rule of law. “For now, the onus is on the government of India to cooperate fully in the investigation of Mr. Nijjar’s killing. At the least, it could do Canada the courtesy of officially deploring it, as the Prime Minister demanded.”

Richard Fadden, the former head of the Canadian Intelligence Service and a national security adviser to both Prime Minister Trudeau and his predecessor, Stephen Harper, shared his perspective with The Globe and Mail. He recommended that Canada consider suspending its intelligence-sharing and cooperation with India. Fadden suggested that while Canada should anticipate a prolonged period of strained relations with India, it should also seek a way to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.

Simultaneously, there was growing concern within the Canadian media about the perceived neutrality of the United States in supporting its closest neighbor. It appeared that the U.S. was not taking as strong a stance as expected and was refraining from taking sides in the matter. This was highlighted by The Washington Post’s article claiming that Canada’s proposal for a joint statement within the Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance had been rejected. This report received significant attention and prompted a formal denial from the Canadian foreign ministry.

Terming the report as false, Ottawa said that Canada had only briefed its allies. “The claim reported in The Washington Post that Canada asked Allies to publicly condemn the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, and was subsequently rebuffed, is false,” Emily Williams, press secretary to Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, said in an e-mailed statement.

Reuters also quoted a Canadian “source” as saying that Ottawa “had been working with the US very closely, including on the public disclosure yesterday”.

The Canadian public broadcaster reported that a “senior US administration official reached out to CBC News to dispute that characterization”.

“Reports that Canada asked the US to publicly condemn the murder and that we refused are false and we would strongly push back on the rumors that we were reluctant to speak publicly about this,” the official said.

“We very clearly and very publicly have done the opposite by expressing deep concern shortly after Prime Minister Trudeau made the announcement,” the anonymous US official told CBC News.

Stephanie Carvin, a former Canadian national security analyst and professor of international relations, cautioned that Canada should not anticipate the same level of robust support from its allies as it received when dealing with the imprisonment of two Canadian nationals by China.

“India is a much harder case because everyone’s trying to woo India right now. And no one wants to risk upsetting that,” she said. “At the end of the day, you have to consider the fact that India is useful [in] countering China and we’re not.”

Analyzing the US comment, Carvin said it backed Canada’s version of events but was muted in its criticism against India. “I think that this is the best we could probably hope for in this situation.”

Also Read

Trudeau: India should take allegation of Nijjar’s murder seriously

Canada accuses India of involvement in the killing of a Sikh leader...

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Canadian Media Questions Justin Trudeau’s India Move

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