Carney won't say whether India is engaged in interference, transnational repression

Prime Minister Mark Carney is refusing to say whether he believes India is still behind acts of foreign interference and transnational repression in Canada.

Six days after a senior official told Canadian journalists that India had stopped such behaviour, the prime minister would not say whether he agreed and said he would not discipline that official.

During a background briefing with reporters before a trip to India last week, a senior government official said Canada is confident Indian foreign interference is not happening anymore. The official said that if Canada believed India was still interfering in its democracy, Carney would not be making the trip. 

Asked during a leg of the trip in Sydney, Australia, whether he agrees with the government official who made the comments, Carney said: "I would not use those words." He also refused several times to say whether New Delhi is interfering in Canadian democracy or repressing Sikh separatists in Canada.

It was the first time Carney spoke with reporters during the trip to India, Australia and Japan, which kicked off Friday.

"There will not be consequences for those officials … There are aspects of those briefings that I can't share in public, and I'm not going to betray them. I will tell you that there is progress on these issues," Carney said.

"It's a product of the resources we're putting in. It's a product of the clarity of our position … We will not tolerate foreign interference, transnational repression, by anyone, and I stress, by anyone. There's a wide range of countries who make these efforts from time to time."

Carney's government has been under pressure to clarify whether it believes India is still engaged in foreign interference. The Globe and Mail published a report late Sunday about the alleged role Indian consular staff played in the murder of a Canadian Sikh activist three years ago. 

Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an advocate for an independent Sikh homeland and president of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, was shot dead in Surrey, B.C., in June 2023. 

The Globe and Mail cited two anonymous sources who said consular staff in Vancouver provided information to help with the killing.

Carney repeated past statements that India and Canada have had a productive series of discussions on security issues that includes work to cut down on violent acts of extortion.

Carney's own secretary of state for combating crime, Ruby Sahota, has joined other Liberal MPs in saying New Delhi is still behind such activity, while India insists it has never engaged in interference. Liberal MP Sukh Dhaliwal said on social media last week he firmly denounces the federal official’s remarks to reporters because they contradict assessments from Canadian security agencies.

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Tuesday that Canada can "no longer afford to put a $4-trillion economy to one side while we aim to diversity our trading partners and grow the domestic economy."

"What we have to do -- being realists, being pragmatists -- is to say yes, there are serious issues in the bilateral relationship with India, and we need to address those issues from a public safety and security standpoint."

She said the federal government will do that by building security ties with India and ensuring "the rule of law allows a trial and a judicial process to unfold independent of political actors."

Asked last week about the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s latest assessment of the threat of foreign interference posed by India, CSIS spokesperson Eric Balsam referenced Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree’s remarks that “there is still more work to be done.”

“For its part, CSIS continues to take all allegations of foreign interference and transnational repression seriously. CSIS remains vigilant against foreign interference and espionage threats from all countries. CSIS’s threat assessment of the main perpetrators of foreign interference and espionage against Canada has not changed,” Balsam said in a statement to The Canadian Press. “When it is in Canada’s national interest to do so, CSIS will always speak publicly about threats.”

Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld