Canada-India Relations

"Contemporary support has re-emerged around proposals for an unofficial referendum of the global Sikh diaspora in 2020 on the question of independence... "
"As government pushback against Sikh community continues, fear of arbitrary arrest and abuse by authorities will likely prompt more Indian Sikhs to leave the country."
Canadian Border Services Agency report

"That information [that Jaspal Atwal, convicted of attempted murder of an Indian politician had been invited to two events where the Prime Minister and his entourage would be present] caused RCMP personnel to search criminal databases, revealing information that should have triggered the notification of the Prime Minister's Protective Detail and the briefing of senior officials: neither the Protective Detail nor officials were notified."
Parliamentary oversight committee on national security report  

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visits the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India on Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

A new report has been released on Canada's Justin Trudeau's ostensible trade trip to India in February where no trade agreement was signed, and the Canadian prime minister barely was able to meet with his Indian counterpart, Prime Minister Modi, who preferred ignoring his presence in India. Canada, under this Liberal administration, is not in good odour in India. Perhaps having something to do with the signals Trudeau has sent abroad as in his statement that "I have more Sikhs in my cabinet than Modi does". Modi, in fact, has two cabinet member Sikhs, Canada's number is double that including a Sikh as Minister of National Defence.

But doesn't a prime minister trump a minister of defence? India's prime minister is Manmohan Singh, a Sikh, and obviously one like most Canadian Sikhs disinterested in a separate Khalistan.

In India with its 1.3-billion population, Sikhs represent 2% of that population. Canada's 36-million population can boast of a 2% Sikh presence. In India militant Sikhs agitate for their own state of Khalistan. In Canada, Sikhs are fully integrated into the greater Canadian community, but there too militant Sikhs agitate and foment unrest in India toward the goal of achieving a sovereign state. And it was from Canada that the dreadful face of terrorism arose when a group of Sikh Khalistanis plotted to bomb an Air India flight that ended with the death of almost 300 Indo-Canadians along with Indian nationals.

Little wonder India is touchy about what it perceives as official Canadian support for violent separatists out of Canada. Justin Trudeau has been known to attend Sikh events where Khalistani flags are flown and where posters of Sikh fanatics have been visible. In the investigation over Trudeau's failed 'trade' trip to India in February, testimony of the prime minister's then-national security adviser has been heavily redacted; the PMO quite obviously content to allow suspicion to fall on Canada's security establishment, CSIS and the RCMP for not notifying the prime minister's office that their guest list included a Sikh separatist and convicted criminal.

That man, Sikh extremist Jaspal Atwal, was also charged with a violent attack on a former British Columbia premier, anti-Khalistan Sikh Ujjal Dosanjh. More latterly, he has been charged with uttering death threats. Prime Minister Trudeau's entire Indian trip appeared to be focused on photo-ops galore, of himself and his family dressed to the hilt in glittery diaphanous Indian Bollywood costumes; if it was meant as a theatrical fashion statement it flopped; if it was meant as a send-up of Indian tastes it failed because most Indians thought the display exhibited abysmally poor taste.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, right, his wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, left, their daughter Ella Grace and son Xavier pose with Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, second left, in Mumbai.  (Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Little wonder that the Indian government suspects Trudeau of supporting Sikh separation from India. His trip to the Golden Temple of Amritsar was nothing if not ill-advised, given the circumstances. Indian officials consider Canada's Minister of National Defence, Harjit Sajjan, to be a Khalistan sympathizer to the point where the chief minister of Punjab refused to meet with him. At Canadian mission receptions held in Mumbai and Delhi, where Trudeau made a splash with his rendition of an Indian dance routine, Jaspal Atwal was on the guest list. He was on the guest list for both events, invited by the prime minister's office which made up their own list of invitees.

The contretemps had far-reaching repercussions, understandably; embarrassment at being upstaged by the rank stupidity of the entire visit capped by the invite to a convicted would-be-murderer, and confirming for Indian officials that yes indeed, Canada supports Sikh separatism. When the entire world is aware that Canada has had its own run-in with Quebec separatism. And would brook no interference from any outside source, including the-then president of France, Charles De Gaulle. in 1967 exalting "Vive le Quebec Libre!".

Indian news reported fully on the Trudeau masquerade imbroglio as it unfolded day after scintillating day, and it certainly didn't ignore the obvious, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was giving Trudeau the cold shoulder; this, from a genial man who enjoys welcoming other government heads to India. Trade deal? What trade deal? Other ministers in the Trudeau cabinet have been assigned to make an effort at damage control to meet with their Indian counterparts. So far, nothing much and matters remain at a "standstill".

India remains suspicious of an ally nation whose government has attempted to suggest that the reason the Trudeau trip to India was ill-fated and went awry was simply that the Indian government was itself responsible in some surreptitious underhanded manner of manipulating events so that Jaspal Atwal, a known Sikh separatist and violent extremist whose failed attempt at assassination of an Indian minister in 1986 led to a prison sentence, became a pawn of the Indian government with an agenda to embarrass the government of Canada.

"Trudeau’s India trip from the outset was playing to a diaspora gallery back home, one in which he has been studiously ambiguous on the Khalistani ties of some of his Liberal Party’s Sikh Canadian supporters."
"But for those who are lukewarm on Trudeau, this will reconfirm their impression that the rock star image hides feet of clay, and that he has been undone by his own cleverness in trying to massage the diaspora vote back home yet appear statesman-like here in India. That facade has crumbled."
Vivek Dehejia, professor, Department of Economics, Carleton University, Ottawa