This article was published by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Washington office, the Center for North American Prosperity and Security (CNAPS.org). It originally appeared in Real Clear World.
By Jamie Tronnes, November 1, 2024
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made global headlines by announcing the expulsion of six Indian diplomats. The drastic measure follows serious allegations of India’s repression of and violence against the Indian-Canadian community and interference in Canada’s democratic processes.
The accusations are sensational: “Indian diplomats and consular officials based in Canada leveraged their official positions to engage in clandestine activities.” Canada’s federal policing agency alleges that agents tied to the Indian government commissioned members of the India-based Bishnoi gang to target, harass, and murder activists. The murder-for-hire plot has extended its web to other countries, including ties to similar allegations in the U.S.
The use of networks like the Bishnoi gang to silence activists abroad, if true, moves India into the company of Russia and Iran, which have employed similar tactics, hiring Hells Angels and other organized crime syndicates to suppress dissent on foreign soil.
And like authoritarian regimes, India did not stop at physical intimidation against the diaspora community. It also interfered in the democratic processes of Canada, hoping to amplify sympathetic voices and suppress dissent.
Canada’s ongoing Inquiry into Foreign Interference has brought attention to the pervasiveness of the issue. And while the public’s attention has focused on Chinese interference, India is increasingly in the spotlight.
Canada’s diaspora communities are particularly vulnerable in this situation. Diaspora populations are being used as pawns by their countries of origin. These regimes pressure and coerce citizens living abroad—whether through intimidation, surveillance, or violence—to align with the interests of their home countries. Canada, with its reputation for multiculturalism and tolerance, has become a laboratory for foreign powers experimenting with these tactics.
Canada has less political and financial muscle to combat these threats, and foreign powers have noticed. As Canadian professor Adam Chapnick noted in an interview with the CBC, “More powerful countries with different interests than ours no longer take us seriously enough to fear that running roughshod over (Canada) would constitute a violation of any international norm.”
India’s response to Canada’s allegations has been incredulous. In a press release, the Indian government said that it “rejects these preposterous imputations and ascribes them to the political agenda of the Trudeau Government that is centered around vote bank politics.” India’s claim centers on the heavy courting of diaspora communities by Canada’s political parties. As subsequent foreign interference investigations have shown, highly concentrated groups of diaspora voters can make or break Canadian primaries and as such, these communities are courted heavily by political parties who treat them, rightly or wrongly, as monolithic voting blocks, hoping to win them over by engaging superficially on foreign politics.
To put Trudeau’s whirlwind week of India accusations in context, he is fighting for his political life. His much-ballyhooed holiday press conference on India conveniently overshadowed that several members of his party were publicly asking for him to resign. If the election were held in Canada tomorrow, the deeply unpopular Mr. Trudeau’s party would be relegated to third-party status.
As if to make India’s point about the whole thing being political, Trudeau took the stand at a Parliamentary inquiry into foreign interference and shockingly stated that he has “the names of a number of parliamentarians, former parliamentarians and or candidates in the Conservative Party… who are engaged, or are at high risk of, or for whom there is clear intelligence around foreign interference.” But, upon cross-examination, he admitted that members of his party are in the same boat.
The United States, by contrast, followed Canada’s accusations by announcing that they were seeking the extradition of an Indian intelligence officer accused of orchestrating the attempted assassination of a U.S.-based Sikh nationalist activist on U.S. soil. The hard machinations were handled behind the scenes. The Indians reacted by saying they would be “fully cooperating” with the Americans as part of the investigation. As one Indian journalist put it, “Trudeau did politics. America, hard diplomacy.”
When murder for hire is at stake, politics should take a back seat. Canada may not see justice for its citizens by playing politics with such a serious topic. The United States will have to do the heavy lifting to get to the truth of the matter, wading around Canada’s diplomatic mess on the path to justice.
If Canada hopes to push back against this foreign meddling, it must choose statecraft over stunts. Its grown-ups need to show up, put the political games away, and remember what’s at stake.
Jamie Tronnes is the executive director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Center for North American Prosperity and Security.
