Justin Trudeau was on the receiving end of nonstop media attention last week. There was a slew of difficult meetings, stilted photo-ops and tense handshakes with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G20 summit in New Delhi. He was either being excluded from many discussions, or pulling himself out of them.
Trudeau also pushed for a rule-of-law agenda that would have had stronger language. He condemned Vladimir Putin and Russia for its ‘illegal invasion of Ukraine’, and then used language that was seemingly directed at Modi and India. ‘Diaspora Canadians make up a huge proportion of our country’, he told world leaders in attendance, ‘and they should be able to express themselves and make their choices without interference from any of the many countries that we know are involved in interference challenges.’
What on earth was going on?
Trudeau’s public image had been badly tarnished in India after he and his family wore traditional outfits during a February 2018 trip. In Canada, publications like Maclean’s called him ‘The Mr Dressup prime minister’, using the moniker of the late popular children’s entertainer, Ernie Coombs – and posted photos of other outfits and costumes he’s worn in public.
Maybe Trudeau was trying to act tough to negate his frequent periods of moodiness at the G20, some speculated. Maybe he was being ignored and admonished by Modi and other world leaders, and decided to push back. Maybe he was tired of photos like US President Joe Biden pointing at him with a stern look on his face receiving traction and various interpretations.
Well, it appears there may have been a very different reason for all this.
On Monday, Trudeau told the House of Commons that senior diplomats in Canada and India had been expelled. ‘Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar’, he said, and Ottawa would ‘hold perpetrators of this murder to account’.
Most Canadians and others were understandably stunned. They probably didn’t have the slightest clue what this was about, either.
Nijjar, a Sikh leader in Surrey, B.C., was murdered on 18 June. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Integrated Homicide Investigation Team told the National Post that ‘two heavy-set suspects’ shot him and escaped in a vehicle ‘driven by a third suspect’.
A 22 June report by Global News painted a much darker picture. Nijjar arrived at Toronto’s Pearson Airport on 10 February, 1997 with a false passport and refugee claim. He reportedly feared persecution in India as a member of ‘a particular social group, namely, individuals associated with Sikh militants’. Canadian immigration officials were suspicious and denied his paperwork. He appealed and lost his court case in 2001. He worked as a plumber, became president of his Sikh temple and self-identified as a Canadian citizen.
Nijjar was a wanted man in India. An arrest warrant was issued through Interpol’s National Central Bureau in New Delhi in November 2014. He was described as a ‘mastermind/active member’ of the militant Khalistan Tiger Force, and was linked to the 2007 bombing of Punjab’s Shingar Cinema. His name appears on India’s Home Ministry list of terrorists under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.
This entire matter is unresolved and remains shrouded in mystery.
India’s foreign ministry released a statement about this diplomatic tete-a-tete with Canada. ‘The concerned diplomat has been asked to leave India within the next five days. The decision reflects Government of India’s growing concern at the interference of Canadian diplomats in our internal matters and their involvement in anti-India activities.’
This statement, much like Canada’s, wasn’t unusual. When two countries are at loggerheads, they will push back to gain (or regain) the upper hand. The fact that it happened in the first place was newsworthy – and came completely out of the blue, too.
No matter what one thinks of Trudeau’s ineffective policies and mediocre leadership, he’s doing the right thing. If Modi and India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party were involved in the murder of a Canadian citizen on foreign soil, they must be held to account.
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