Former prime minister Stephen Harper said Saturday that political parties should stay away from the Khalistan movement if they want better relations with India.Blair Gable/The Canadian Press
Former prime minister Stephen Harper said Canada needs to mend relations with India because the democracy of 1.4 billion people is a necessary partner in an increasingly chaotic world.
He also urged all Canadian political parties to shun the Khalistan movement, which seeks to carve a separate state for Sikhs out of India.
Relations between Canada and India went into a deep freeze in September, 2023 when then-prime minister Justin Trudeau publicly accused New Delhi of playing a role in the gangland slaying of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian Khalistan advocate, on Canadian soil.
Both countries subsequently expelled diplomats and 20 months after this rupture, Canada’s and India’s ambassador-level posts in each other’s country remain vacant.
Mr. Harper made no explicit mention of the shooting of Mr. Nijjar but warned Canadian politicians to cut ties to Khalistan supporters, whom he referred to as “Indian separatists.”
The former prime minister spoke Saturday in Toronto after receiving an award from a group that promotes trade with India. Six years ago, his company, Harper & Associates, won a contract from the Saskatchewan government to expand the province’s trade relations with Asia, including India.
Mr. Harper said the rules-based international order is disappearing and something more volatile is taking its place: “something much more akin to survival of the fittest and the triumph of the strongest” and the “shift of a mindset from mutual benefit to zero-sum thinking.”
Consequently, Canada needs to find “enlightened partners” such as India to prosper, Mr. Harper said.
“What better emerging power than one that holds no imperialist ambitions and that possesses a free, democratic and pluralist political ethos?”
Despite Mr. Harper’s praise for India, the country has faced increased criticism over the past decade. U.S. watchdog Freedom House rates India as “partly free” and says Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) “have presided over discriminatory policies and a rise in persecution affecting Muslims” while harassment of journalists, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and other government critics has increased significantly.
India has long complained that Canada provides a haven for Khalistan advocates. Canada is home to about 770,000 who reported Sikhism as their religion in the most recent census, comprising 2.1 per cent of the population. A small but influential number of these Sikhs support the idea of Khalistan.
Mr. Harper, however, said political parties should stay away from the Khalistan movement if they want better relations with India.
“Canada cannot have that strong relationship unless the governing party, and frankly, any political party that aspires to government − unless they sever relations with those who seek to bring the battles of India’s past to Canada,” he said.
In later remarks on Saturday, he elaborated on his thoughts.
“The Khalistani movement is a fringe movement in Canada. It is a fringe movement among Indo-Canadians and it is even a fringe movement among Sikh Canadians,” he said. “And I don’t know why various politicians spend so much time on this.”
Mr. Harper said during his time as prime minister, “my caucus understood we were to have no contact whatsoever with the Khalistani movement. And I hope all political parties will return to that kind of a policy.”
The Ottawa-based World Sikh Organization (WSO) accused Mr. Harper of vilifying Sikh Canadians and playing down India’s alleged role in the killing of Mr. Nijjar. The Indian government has denied any part in Mr. Nijjar’s death. He was shot dead outside a Surrey, B.C., gurdwara in June 2023.
“Any attempt to rebuild ties with India without demanding accountability and full co-operation in the investigations into India’s criminal operations in Canada would be a betrayal — not only of the Sikh community, but also of the rule of law and Canadian values," WSO president Danish Singh said in a statement.
“Harper’s suggestion that Sikhs who support Khalistan should be excluded from political life is both undemocratic and inflammatory. It echoes Indian disinformation and propaganda aimed at vilifying Sikhs in Canada and fuelling anti-Sikh hate.”
Stephen Saideman, who holds the Paterson Chair in International Affairs at Carleton University, said Mr. Harper is working to legitimize “far right populists, including Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Narendra Modi and so this is him doing a favour for someone who is not a force for democracy in India.”
WSO legal counsel Balpreet Singh said one way to gauge support for the Khalistan movement in Canada is the reported turnout at events where participants were asked to vote in an unofficial referendum in support of a separate homeland for Sikhs. A cumulative count of turnout for these referendum events in recent years drew hundreds of thousands of people, he noted.
“That seems significantly more than fringe,” Mr. Singh, the legal counsel, said.