Prime Minister arrived in India Thursday for a trade and goodwill mission.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Prime Minister Mark Carney is being urged to clarify whether he agrees with a senior government official who said India is no longer involved in foreign interference and transnational repression in Canada.
Mr. Carney left Canada Thursday en route to India on a trade and goodwill mission, during which he will hold high-level talks with his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi.
He left behind a political and national-security controversy. A senior government official told reporters Wednesday that Ottawa does not believe India is still meddling in this country’s domestic politics and orchestrating violence and intimidation against Canadian Sikhs who support the idea of creating an independent Sikh homeland in what is now the Indian state of Punjab.
The senior official spoke to journalists during a background briefing that dealt with the Prime Minister’s trip to India. The Globe and Mail is not naming the official because they weren’t authorized to speak for attribution on the matter.
“I strongly condemn the remarks made by the official,” Liberal MP Sukh Dhaliwal said in an interview Thursday. “This view is disconnected from the reality confronting members of the Sikh community across Canada and contradicts assessments by national-security and law-enforcement agencies.”
Mr. Dhaliwal, a Canadian Sikh who represents the riding of Surrey-Newton, said the Prime Minister must issue a clarification and review the qualifications of the official who made the comments.
“This is totally not tolerable. This matter must be addressed without delay, and a formal review is a necessity,” he said.
The Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement to The Globe and Mail Thursday that said both countries have established regular top-level channels on security and law enforcement.
But the statement did not say that India is no longer involved in foreign interference and transnational repression. Nor did the statement outright reject the comments made by the senior official.
“Canada will continue to take measures to combat any forms of transnational repression, transnational organized crime, and any contravention of the Criminal Code or rule of law on Canadian soil,” the statement said. It noted that Canada and India are engaged in an “ongoing law enforcement dialogue” and “step-by-step approach to re-engagement with India.”
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On Thursday, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree would only say there’s “a lot more work to do” to ensure agents of the Indian government are not coercing or intimidating people in Canada.
In an appearance on CBC’s Power and Politics, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand did not disavow the senior official. She would not say whether his comments were a setback for the Carney trip but argued that the recent Indo-Canadian security dialogue has been positive.
“We are raising the issues relating to public safety and security and will do that in this trip,” Ms. Anand said. “We need to be at the table to raise the concerns relating to transnational repression, to the rule of law.”
CSIS issued a statement Thursday lauding the security dialogue. But the spy service said it won’t pull back from warning the public about national-security threats – no matter the country.
“CSIS takes all allegations of foreign interference and transnational repression seriously and we consider threats in a country-agnostic way. This hasn’t changed,” said spokesperson Magali Hébert.
Dan Stanton, a former senior Canadian Security Intelligence Service manager, said the assessment by the senior official flies in the face of repeated warnings from CSIS and the RCMP.
“For a government official to say that they have stopped those activities, I feel is naive,” said Mr. Stanton, who also urged the Prime Minister to issue a strong clarification.
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The senior official told reporters that “if we believed that the government of India was actively interfering in the Canadian democratic process, we probably would not be taking this trip.”
Asked about allegations that agents of the Indian government are engaged in extortion or threats of violence in Canada, the official said Ottawa believes that this is no longer happening, citing a high-level communication channel on security.
Mr. Stanton, who spent years handling Indian interference and transnational repression, said the spy agency would not have told the government that India has given up these activities.
“You don’t make categorical statements that a foreign government like India is not going to conduct transnational repression or interference in our elections,” he said.
The statement from the senior official is a significant change from 16 months ago when Canada expelled six Indian diplomats, including the country’s high commissioner. The former Justin Trudeau government had accused India of being part of a campaign of violence against Canadian citizens, including the 2023 murder in Surrey, B.C., of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. He was involved in an effort to rally support among the Sikh diaspora for the establishment of Khalistan, a Sikh homeland whose creation India has opposed as an affront to its sovereignty.
India strongly denied the allegations and responded with tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions. When he became Prime Minister, Mr. Carney put diplomatic relations back on track by inviting Mr. Modi to the Group of Seven summit in Alberta last year.
“It almost sounds like the government is trying to basically justify this resetting with India,” Mr. Stanton said. He also urged Mr. Carney to say whether his official is right or wrong.
“India has said it is all lies and there is no evidence. So have they now said to the Canadian government we are not going to do the stuff we never admitted to doing anyway.”
But as late as November, CSIS Director Dan Rogers issued an annual statement on national security in which he named China and India as the main actors of foreign meddling and transnational repression in Canada.
In its annual report to Parliament in June, CSIS said the investigation into the gangland-style slaying of Mr. Nijjar continues and said the links between “the government of India and the Nijjar murder signals a significant escalation of India’s repression efforts against the Khalistan movement and a clear intent to target individuals in North America.”
CSIS said Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalist agenda includes using Canada-based proxy agents that seek to influence the South Asian community and politicians. India’s pressure tactics and targeting play a central role in New Delhi’s activities in Canada, the report said.
With a report from The Canadian Press