A source with top-secret clearance says that Liberal MP Chandra Arya took a trip to India last August and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, despite a deep freeze in bilateral relations over accusations that India carried out murder and other violent acts in Canada.The Canadian Press
The Liberal Party revoked MP Chandra Arya’s bid to run for the party leadership and his nomination in his own Ottawa riding over alleged foreign-interference concerns involving India, according to a source with top-secret clearance.
Mr. Arya took a trip to India last August and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The source said Mr. Arya had not informed the government of that trip even though bilateral relations are in a deep freeze over accusations that India carried out murder and other violent acts in Canada.
The Liberals have never revealed why they barred the three-term Liberal MP from the party’s recent leadership race or from running again in the Ottawa riding of Nepean. Liberal Leader Mark Carney, who is the first Prime Minister to govern before holding elected office, is running in the constituency for the April 28 election.
The source said the Canadian Security Intelligence Service had briefed the government about Mr. Arya’s alleged close ties to the government of India, including its High Commission in Ottawa. Liberal Party officials who have security clearances and had received a general CSIS briefing on foreign interference also had concerns about Mr. Arya, a Liberal source said.
The Globe is not identifying the two sources. The first source was not authorized to disclose classified information publicly. The Liberal source was not authorized to discuss internal party matters.
The decisions to remove Mr. Arya as a candidate for the leadership and Nepean nomination were solely made by the Liberal Party and were not on the advice of CSIS, both sources said. Party officials, in charge of monitoring foreign meddling, found troubling inconsistencies in information that Mr. Arya had put in a confidential questionnaire, the second source said.
Mr. Arya disputed allegations that he has been influenced by India or has a special relationship with the Modi government.
“As a Member of Parliament, I have engaged with numerous diplomats and heads of government, both in Canada and internationally. Not once have I sought – nor been required to seek – permission from the government to do so,” he said in a statement to The Globe.
Mr. Arya said no one in the federal government ever raised concerns about his meeting or public statements. The MP, who is of the Hindu faith, said he believes he was removed from the leadership and Nepean nomination because he’s spoken out against the Sikh Khalistani movement in Canada that promotes a separate state in Punjab.
“The sole point of contention with the Liberal Party has been my outspoken advocacy on issues important to Hindu Canadians and my firm stance against Khalistani extremism,” he said in the statement.
The five-week election campaign is being held in the shadow of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and annexation threats while worries mount about election interference by countries such as India, China, Pakistan and Iran.
Vanessa Lloyd, deputy director of operations at CSIS, warned Monday about likely interference by these countries in the election through disinformation and interference activities by diplomats and proxies in immigrant communities.
At a campaign event in Halifax on Tuesday, Mr. Carney said he’s “not privy to the exact information” on why Mr. Arya was barred from the leadership race or dropped from the Liberal ticket. Mr. Carney recently applied for and obtained security clearance, and has been briefed on security matters, but his answers to media in Halifax suggested the Liberal Leader has learned nothing from authorities about Mr. Arya’s case.
He did not answer a question on whether Mr. Arya’s removal was related to his ties to the Modi government.
The Liberal Leader declined to offer any insight into the reasons behind this and said this information is in the possession of the party’s Green Light committee “that made the decision to disqualify Mr. Arya.”
He said the party shared its findings with “the relevant authorities.”
Mr. Arya had intended to enter the Liberal leadership race set up earlier this year to replace Justin Trudeau. The Liberal Party barred him from running. It was only March 21, days before the election call, that the Liberal Party also ousted Mr. Arya as a candidate for Nepean.
Last week, Mr. Arya released a letter from the Liberal Party that informed him it decided to disallow his Nepean nomination after “a thorough review of your eligibility to serve as a candidate” in the riding and based on “new information” made available to the party’s “Green Light committee.”
Mr. Arya’s one-on-one meeting with Mr. Modi at his official residence took place with Indo-Canadian relations at an all-time low. Mr. Trudeau has accused Indian agents of being behind the gangland slaying of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar when he left the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, B.C., on June 18, 2023.
In October, 2024, the RCMP said India was involved in “homicides, extortion and violent acts” and targeting supporters of the pro-Khalistan movement. Ottawa and New Delhi engaged in tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats over those accusations. India flatly rejected these allegations as preposterous and called Canada a safe haven for terrorists and extremists.
In December, Mr. Arya got into an altercation with fellow Liberal MP Sukh Dhaliwal, a Sikh, after Mr. Arya refused consent for a motion in the House of Commons to condemn the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in India as “genocide.”
Mr. Arya told the House that Mr. Dhaliwal threatened him on his way out of the Commons chamber, while another unnamed MP “aggressively accosted” him in the government lobby.
“As a member of Parliament, I should be able to express my opinion, my views, freely in the House and I should not [feel] threatened by any words or actions of my fellow members,” he said at the time.