Khalistan, China links in Trudeau’s accusations against India

[CaptainMaverick]

The Canadian PM accused India of eliminating Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Khalistani terrorist, after his government was criticised over media reports that China interfered in the 2019 and 2021 elections

 

As the moon eclipsed the sun on 8 April, a usually excited Justin Trudeau waved at a few Canadians after taking off his safety glasses atop his office. “Hey, good to see ya!” he says in the video with the caption “Sunny ways”.

It is not “sunny” indeed for Canada-India relations considering the immaturity and stupidity that have eclipsed Trudeau. His sudden backlash at India last September accusing its “agents” of  murdering  Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF) chief and Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a wanted terrorist in India, at the parking lot of Surrey’s Guru Nanak Gurdwara Sahib in June 2023 was  intriguing .

What made Nijjar’s murder and the accusation more mysterious was  his regular meetings  with Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) officers since February 2023. His son Balraj Singh Nijjar told Canada’s CTV News that his father met CSIS officers “once or twice a week”, including one or two days before his murder. The CSIS also alleged India’s role without providing substantial evidence and  demanded accountability .

 

In the second case of Canada’s anti-India stance and ranting, the CSIS alleged that India and Pakistan attempted to interfere in the 2019 and 2021 Canadian federal elections.

Trudeau’s Liberal Party of Canada, the country’s longest-serving and the oldest federal political party dominating politics for almost seven decades, has had a proclivity for sheltering Khalistani terrorists. Besides, the party has a history of ignoring China’s human rights abuses for better bilateral trade. These factors have had a direct bearing on its relations with India and are the reasons for the recent accusations against New Delhi.

Canada’s Sikh appeasement

Canada’s mollycoddling of the Sikh community and allowing anti-India activities by Khalistanis on its soil have a strong reason.

Of Canada’s 3.70 crore population, Sikhs number around 7,70,000, or 2.1 per cent, according to the 2021 census. Manitoba province has the highest number of Sikhs at 2.7 per cent, followed by Alberta at 2.5 per cent and Ontario 2.1 per cent. Canada’s Sikh population, which started increasing since 1991, has doubled in the last 20 years with the community becoming the fourth largest religious group after Christians, Muslims and Hindus.

Trudeau’s first Cabinet had four Sikhs and more politicians from the community were elected in the 2019 federal election compared to India’s Lok Sabha election the same year.

In what then-Opposition Conservative Party leader Candice Bergen described as Canadians being “hoodwinked” and “deceived” in a “power grab”, Trudeau struck a surprise deal with Jagmeet Singh’s opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) in March 2022 to keep his minority government in power till 2025.

Talwinder Singh Parmar, the mastermind of the bombing of Air India Flight 182 (Emperor Kanishka) on 23 June, 1985, is revered at several Canadian gurdwaras. At a pro-Khalistan rally in June 2023, as attacks were reported on Indian High Commissions in Canada, the United States (US) and the United Kingdom, Parmar’s posters referring to the terrorist as ‘Shaheed Bhai Talwinder Parmar’ were displayed.

When Trudeau’s coalition partner Jagmeet Singh was repeatedly asked by Terry Milewski, then-CBC correspondent and author of Blood for Blood - Fifty Years of the Global Khalistan Project, in October 2017, if he thought “some Canadian Sikhs go too far when they honour Talwinder Singh Parmar as a martyr of the Sikh nation”?,  he refused to reply  and instead mentioned the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

To remain in power, Trudeau conveniently teamed up with a politician who supports Parmar’s veneration by Canada’s pro-Khalistanis.

The Liberal Party’s backing and allowing the hero worship of Parmar, who fled to Canada after murdering two cops in Punjab in 1981, is not new. Even the Canadian prime minister’s father, Pierre Trudeau, refused to extradite Parmar in 1982. According to Milewski’s book, he denied the extradition request on the ground that India was insufficiently deferential to the Queen. Three years later, Parmar masterminded the Kanishka bombing.

Moreover, Parmer and his accomplice Inderjit Singh Reyat were under the CSIS radar, according to Milewski, yet Canada didn’t act to foil the plot. It wasn’t a mere coincidence that Reyat, the only one to get convicted of the bombing, was released in 2016 soon after Trudeau Sr was elected prime minister.

From Parmar to Nijjar, Canadian politicians have been placating Sikh terrorists to get the community’s votes. Despite an Interpol Red Corner Notice (RCN) issued against Nijjar in 2014, Canada didn’t arrest and deport him to India. According to Indian officials,  Ottawa has ignored several dossiers  handed over by New Delhi requesting the deportation of wanted terrorists and gangsters.

Nine pro-Khalistani organisations, including the KTF, Sikhs for Justice and Babbar Khalsa International, are based in Canada. Ottawa also shelters terrorists like Gurpreet Singh, Gurwant Singh, who faces an RCN, Gurwant Singh Bath, Bhagat Singh Brar, Moninder Singh Bual and Satinder Pal Singh Gill.

To appease Canadian Sikhs,  Trudeau poked his nose into the farmers protest  as well in December 2020 saying that Canada will always defend the right of peaceful protest and expressed concern. Three months later, six Canadian MPs, including three Sikhs,  wrote a letter  to foreign minister Marc Garneau urging him to talk to his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar over the protests.

Any anti-India ranting or criticism gets the backing of the Liberals or other parties, who don’t want to irk Sikhs due to their electoral weight. The situation has worsened after the Liberal-NDP coalition with Jagmeet Singh often targeting India.

Canada’s Chinese connection

The viral video of Xi Jinping’s infamous dressing-down of a nodding Trudeau at the G20 Leaders Summit in Bali, Indonesia, in November 2022 showed China’s scant respect for Canada.

“Everything we discussed has been leaked to the paper,” a smiling but firm Xi told a sheepish Trudeau about their earlier discussion on alleged Chinese interference in the 2019 election. “That’s not appropriate. And that’s not the way the conversation was conducted,” he said accusing him of leaking the discussion to the media.