Justin Trudeau describes failed efforts at quiet diplomacy with PM Modi

By Brian Platt

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he only went public with a murder allegation involving India’s government after a lengthy behind-the-scenes effort to address the matter diplomatically was rejected by Indian officials.
 

He said Canadian officials had first sought cooperation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government “in a responsible way” that doesn’t “blow up the relationship between Canada and India,” especially given India was about to host a Group of 20 leaders summit at the time. 

“We had the opportunity of making it a very uncomfortable summit for India if we went public with these allegations ahead of time,” Trudeau said, recalling the discussions in August 2023. “We chose not to. We chose to continue to work behind the scenes to try to get India to cooperate with us.”

 

Canada’s intelligence made it clear India was involved in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh activist gunned down in British Columbia earlier that year, Trudeau said. His efforts at quiet diplomacy culminated in a meeting with Modi at the G-20 summit in September 2023, but this also failed to make progress on the matter, he said.

“I sat down and shared that we knew that they were involved, and expressed a real concern around it,” Trudeau said. “He responded with the usual response from him, which is that we have people who are outspoken against the Indian government living in Canada that he would like to see arrested.”

Trudeau gave the account during testimony to a judicial inquiry examining foreign interference in Canadian democracy. The inquiry has mostly focused on China, but other countries including India have also come up during the hearings.

Canada’s allegation that India played in a role in the slaying of Nijjar exploded into public view shortly after the Trudeau and Modi meeting, when Trudeau revealed it in a speech to the Canadian Parliament. He had to go public in part because some media outlets were preparing stories on the matter, Trudeau said.

Modi’s government reacted furiously, rejecting the accusation as absurd, ejecting Canadian diplomats and temporarily suspending visa processing. 

“Canada has presented us no evidence whatsoever in support of the serious allegations that it has chosen to level against India and Indian diplomats,” India’s foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a statement Thursday. “The responsibility for the damage that this cavalier behavior has caused to India-Canada relations lies with Prime Minister Trudeau alone.” 

Canadian police have criminally charged four Indian nationals over the Nijjar killing, but the allegations haven’t stopped there. This week Canada and India expelled each others’ most senior envoys after Canada’s national police force said Indian diplomats were implicated in an escalating campaign of violence and extortion across the country.

At a news conference on Monday, Trudeau said Canadian officials had again tried to seek India’s cooperation behind the scenes and its only response had been to deny, obfuscate and attack his government. He said he spoke with Modi at the end of last week and impressed upon him that the allegations needed to be taken “very, very seriously.”

India has called Canada’s allegations “preposterous” and politically motivated. It had designated Nijjar a terrorist.

Trudeau told the inquiry on Wednesday that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police would have preferred to follow the country’s usual law enforcement procedure and not reveal the allegations before charges or a trial. But it felt it had no choice but to go public given the involvement of Indian officials with diplomatic immunity.

“The decision by the RCMP to go forward with that announcement was entirely anchored in public safety, and a goal of disrupting the chain of activities that was resulting in drive-by shootings, home invasions, violent extortion, and even murder, in and across Canada — particularly in the South Asian community,” Trudeau said.

The prime minister also revealed that his government asked Canada’s intelligence agencies to look into Nijjar’s murder after hearing concerns from South Asian members of Parliament and those in the community, but learned officers were already investigating it. 

Ultimately, Canada is not looking to provoke a fight with Modi’s government and has repeatedly tried to give “off ramps” to India that have been rejected, Trudeau said.

“We don’t want to be in this situation of picking a fight with a significant trading partner, with whom we have deep people-to-people ties and a long history and are fellow democracies.”

Conservative Accusations
 

The inquiry was prompted by a series of media leaks last year that cited intelligence memos alleging China was orchestrating efforts to get certain candidates elected in Canada. 

One media story alleged a Chinese diplomat boasted he had helped ensure Trudeau’s Liberal Party won a minority government in Parliament, and that such an outcome was best for China.

An interim report earlier this year found China’s attempted meddling did not affect the election results.

Trudeau used his testimony on Wednesday to direct some attention at his rival in the Conservative party, Pierre Poilievre. The prime minister said he knows the names of former and current Conservative parliamentarians or nominees who are allegedly involved in foreign interference. 

Poilievre has refused to participate in classified briefings on the issue because he would not be able to share the findings with the public — which he argues amounts to muzzling.

“The decision by the leader of the Conservative Party to not get those classified briefings means that nobody in his party — not him and nobody in a position of power — knows the names of these individuals and can take appropriate action,” Trudeau said. 

“It also means nobody’s there to stand up for those individuals if the intelligence is shoddy or incomplete or just allegations from a single source.”

In a statement, Poilievre accused Trudeau of lying and demanded he release the names of implicated parliamentarians across all political parties. “It is beyond rich for Justin Trudeau to grandstand,” Poilievre said, arguing the inquiry has shown both the government and Liberal Party were warned about foreign interference “and refused to act.” 

(Updates with India’s statement in ninth paragraph)
 

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