New Delhi: The Indian government on Wednesday night said that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s deposition at the Commission of Inquiry into Foreign Interference only confirms what New Delhi has been maintaining consistently -- that Canada has provided no evidence to back its serious allegations against India. The government also said that Justin Trudeau’s cavalier behaviour has damaged bilateral relations.
In a late night response, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said:
"What we have heard today only confirms what we have been saying consistently all along - Canada has presented us no evidence whatsoever in support of the serious allegations that it has chosen to level against India and Indian diplomats.
“The responsibility for the damage that this cavalier behaviour has caused to India-Canada relations lies with Prime Minister Trudeau alone."
The MEA spokesperson’s response comes as the Canadian PM has admitted before the commission that he had based his allegations against India on intelligence inputs and had nothing concrete to show for it. When India asked Ottawa for proof to back the allegations, Trudeau instead said that "Let’s work together on this”. But India persisted in asking for proof, and Trudeau responded with a lame “tell us what your (Indian) agencies have on this” – which goes to show that he had nothing concrete to back his allegations.
In fact, PM Trudeau has been accused of lying by the Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre with regard to the matter of alleged Chinese interference in Canada’s politics, when Trudeau told the commission on Wednesday that some Conservative parliamentarians are involved in foreign interference.
Poilievre has in a statement demanded that Trudeau give the names of Conservative MPs who the PM alleges have collaborated with foreign interference.
"But he won't. Because Justin Trudeau is doing what he always does: he is lying. He is lying to distract from a Liberal caucus revolt against his leadership and revelations he knowingly allowed Beijing to interfere and help him win two elections," said Poilievre.
On Monday, India and Canada expelled six of each other’s diplomats in a tit-for-tat move over the investigation into the killing of Nijjar.
India has said the “baseless targeting” of the Indian High Commissioner and other diplomats and officials in Canada was completely unacceptable.
It was underlined that in an atmosphere of extremism and violence, the Trudeau Government's actions endangered the safety of the Indian diplomats. India also conveyed that it has “no faith” in the current Canadian Government's commitment to ensure their security.
“It was also conveyed that India reserves the right to take further steps in response to the Trudeau Government’s support for extremism, violence and separatism against India.”
The drastic moves came in the wake of a diplomatic communication from Canada on Sunday “suggesting that the Indian High Commissioner and other diplomats are ‘persons of interest’” in the probe related to the killing of Nijjar.
India strongly rejected these preposterous imputations and ascribed them to the political agenda of the Trudeau Government that is centered around vote bank politics.
India has said that since Prime Minister Trudeau made his allegations in September 2023, the Canadian Government has not shared a shred of evidence with the Government of India, despite many requests from New Delhi.
India said that “This leaves little doubt that on the pretext of an investigation, there is a deliberate strategy of smearing India for political gains”.
“Prime Minister Trudeau’s hostility to India has long been in evidence. In 2018, his visit to India, which was aimed at currying favour with a vote bank, rebounded to his discomfort. His Cabinet has included individuals who have openly associated with an extremist and separatist agenda regarding India. His naked interference in Indian internal politics in December 2020 showed how far he was willing to go in this regard. That his Government was dependent on a political party, whose leader openly espouses a separatist ideology vis-à-vis India, only aggravated matters,” India has said, referring to the alliance with New Democratic Party led by Khalistani extremist Jagmeet Singh.
