India expresses displeasure to Canada over interference allegations

Toronto: India has communicated its displeasure to Ottawa over recent allegations that it had interfered in Canada’s internal affairs.

That sentiment has been conveyed by Indian diplomats in Canada to senior officials including National Security and Intelligence Advisor or NSIA Nathalie G. Drouin, a person familiar with the action said.

Multiple agencies have accused India of foreign interference in their reports. In June, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians or NSCIOP stated that India has “emerged as the second-most significant foreign interference threat to Canada’s democratic institutions and processes” after China and displacing Russia.

In its Public Report 2023, issued in May, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service or CSIS noted, “The report stated, “Major perpetrators of foreign interference and espionage in both Canada and the West include the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and India. In 2023, these states and their intelligence services continued to engage in a variety of hostile foreign interference and espionage activities to advance their objectives and interests.”

Day before that, the Initial Report from the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions, headed by Justice Marie-Josee Hogue, said that India undertakes foreign interference activities “which aim to align Canada’s position with India’s interests on key issues, particularly with respect to how the Indian government perceives Canada-based supporters of an independent Sikh homeland (Khalistan).”

In a statement last week, India’s High Commissioner to Ottawa Sanjay Kumar Verma described these allegations as “politically motivated.”

“We completely reject politically motivated claims that India has interfered in Canadian elections. No concrete evidence has been shared for these claims to be evaluated. These allegations could, most probably, be based on hearsay, possibly peddled by Canada based anti-India extremists and terrorists, whose sole aim is to disrupt Canada-India relations and meddle in India’s internal affairs,” he said.

“The concerned Canadian institutions, leveling these unsubstantiated claims - most likely based on uncorroborated intelligence inputs, have followed opaque processes to reach such conclusions,” he added.

These accusations have increasingly come to the fore after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement in the House of Commons on September 18 last year that there were “credible allegations” of a potential link between Indian agents and the killing of pro-Khalistan figure Hardeep Singh Nijjar three months earlier in Surrey, British Columbia. While investigators have arrested four Indian nationals this year in connection with the murder, the Indian angle has not been substantiated though they have said the probe in that direction is ongoing.