Roving Periscope: Infested with terrorists, Canada turning into Pakistan-II

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: Canada, like Pakistan, may have turned into a proxy of the USA, becoming America’s toolkit for geopolitical manipulations, harboring ‘non-state actors’ against unfavorable elected governments, and attempting a regime change.

With the tacit support of Washington and London, Ottawa’s recent brinkmanship against New Delhi is an example of how nations degenerate.

Despite Trudeau himself acknowledging that he had no evidence against India, domestic Opposition pressures, adverse political fallouts, a sagging economy, and a dented global image, the highly unpopular Liberal government, in its last few months in office, is digging the pitch for the next government, likely to be led by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.

With a meager 19 percent rating now and over 30 angry Liberal Party MPs seeking his ouster, Justin, son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau—his only qualification to be in power—is leaving no stone unturned to put Canada on a Biblical Road to Perdition. The Trudeau Senior had started the ‘open door immigration policy’ of giving asylum to all kinds of shady characters, criminals, fugitives from the law, militants, extremists, and terrorists—something his worthy son has continued.

That’s why, Justine’s government is going ahead with ruining relations not only with India but also with China and Russia—all of whom are now on America’s hit list for different reasons. Of the three, China is the second-largest economy and India is racing to become the third-largest.

In terms of geoeconomics, India may still suit America but not geopolitically. Indications of what the US could do started coming last year when President Joe Biden went out of the way to praise Prime Minister Narendra Modi and even sought his “autograph.” In diplomacy, it is called a velvet glove hiding an iron fist! Beware of those who praise you.

So, Washington is trying to tighten the screws on New Delhi using all state and non-actor means, including human rightists, green activists, poverty peddlers, hunger indexers, and militants in the garb of religious freedom fighters—especially after India plugged foreign funding for Christian missionaries and their cohorts in the media and NGOs.

It came as no surprise that Canada took the next step to further downgrade or even sever bilateral relations with India. Wait for America and Britain to follow—make no mistake, they will remain business-friendly and political frenemies.

Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly on Friday said the remaining Indian diplomats in the country are clearly on notice after Ottawa named the Indian High Commissioner as a ‘person of interest’ in the alleged assassination of a Sikh separatist leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in June 2023.

Joly said her government would ‘not tolerate’ any diplomats who contravene the Vienna Convention or put the lives of Canadians at risk. By Canadians, she meant Sikh separatists, pushing for the so-called Khalistan, who are now the much-sought-after supporters of Trudeau’s unpopular Liberal Party, heading into the next year’s parliamentary elections.

In a tit-for-tat, India expelled six Canadian diplomats on Monday and announced that it was withdrawing its High Commissioner and five envoys in Canada after dismissing Ottawa’s wild claims linking the senior envoy to the probe into the Nijjar killing. 

Canada, however, boasted it had ‘expelled’ six Indian diplomats.

Joly, comparing India to Russia—because New Delhi has not condemned Moscow on the Ukraine issue—said Canada’s national police force has ‘linked’ Indian diplomats to homicides, death threats, and intimidation in Canada, the media reported on Saturday.

“We’ve never seen that in our history. That level of transnational repression cannot happen on Canadian soil. We’ve seen it elsewhere in Europe. Russia has done that in Germany and the UK and we needed to stand firm on this issue,” she said in Montreal.

Asked if other Indian diplomats will be expelled, Joly said: “They are clearly on notice. Six of them have been expelled including the High Commissioner to Ottawa. Others were mainly from Toronto and Vancouver and clearly, we won’t tolerate any diplomats that are in contravention of the Vienna Convention.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) went public this week with allegations that Indian diplomats were targeting Sikh separatists in Canada by sharing information about them with their government back home.

Calling out the notorious Lawrence Bishnoi crime gang, the RCMP boasted that top Indian officials were passing information about Sikh separatists to Indian organized crime groups who were targeting the activists.

The relations between India and Canada nosedived following Trudeau’s allegations in September 2023 of the “potential” involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Nijjar, who was gunned down in Surrey, British Columbia.

India has stoutly rejected the Canadian accusations as absurd and politically motivated.

New Delhi has repeatedly criticized Trudeau’s government for being soft on supporters of the Khalistan movement who live in Canada.