On this week’s Mortal Giants podcast, Sandy Garossino and Vina Nadjibulla discuss the deteriorating relationship between Canada and India, a rift that became public after September 2023 when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused India of involvement in the killing of a Canadian Sikh leader in B.C. The Indian government called the accusation “absurd.” Then both governments expelled diplomats.
Listen here: "Beyond the Headlines: The India Canada Diplomatic Storm"
Garossino and Nadjibulla take us step-by-step through the escalating rhetoric between the two governments and the events that led to the RCMP holding a news conference on Thanksgiving weekend in 2024 to lay out the findings of their investigation — that the Modi government created a network of to follow and harass and perhaps even orchestrate the murders of Sikh separatists in Canada.
The RCMP statement said there is a violent extremism threat in Canada that Canada and India have been working on over the years, but suggested the cooperation had broken down. The RCMP said it had found links tying the India government to homicides and violent acts, as well as interference in democratic processes.
“Essentially, the accusation is that India decided that certain individuals in the US and in Canada represent a security threat to them, that they are in fact terrorists,” Nadjibulla said. “That's how India views these individuals, these Khalistan separatists, and that since Canada, in India's narrative, hasn't done enough, therefore we are entitled to go and take care of them in the same way that states have taken care of these issues in war zones.”
The expulsion of diplomats from Canada, and India’s reciprocal action to expel six Canadian diplomats, drew worldwide attention.
“It is quite unusual and unprecedented for friendly governments to engage in such a big public diplomatic spat,” Nadjibulla said. “In the Canadian context, the last time we did something like this was in the seventies and it was with the Soviets. And that's during the Cold War and Soviet Union was an adversary state.”
With tensions between Canada and India having risen to this unprecedented state, what can possibly come next?
Mortal Giants is hosted by Sandy Garossino with Vina Nadjibulla. Garossino is the award-winning public affairs columnist for Canada’s National Observer. Nadjibulla is Vice-President of Research and Strategy at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and a respected commentator on geopolitics, Canadian foreign policy, and Canada-Asia relations.
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