As experts urge Canada to ease the strain after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused India of helping kill a Canadian, Ottawa is turning to the world of slideshows and flow charts.
Canadian officials are offering their Indian counterparts “workshops” on the rule of law — at least as Canada sees it — even as tensions over Sikh separatism flare up.
“How India defines extremism or even terrorism does not always compute in our legal system,” senior bureaucrat Weldon Epp told MPs this month.
“Justice Canada has — and the RCMP in the past — done, effectively, workshops with the Indian government, to explain what our standards legally would be.”
Last June, Sikh community leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead outside his gurdwara in Surrey, B.C., and his supporters quickly blamed India.
He, like some others in Canada’s large Sikh population, was an advocate for the creation of a sovereign state called Khalistan.
In September came Trudeau’s bombshell revelation that Canadian intelligence agencies were “pursuing credible allegations of a potential link” between India’s government and Nijjar’s death.
Canadian officials have since called for better co-operation from Indian counterparts — who charge Canada is providing little evidence.
Epp, who oversees Canada’s diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific, testified at a parliamentary committee this month that little more will emerge until the RCMP is poised to lay charges.
In November, U.S. authorities unsealed an indictment alleging an Indian diplomat engaged in conspiracy to order the assassination of another Sikh separatist. The plot was foiled, but American authorities said they found evidence of plans to assassinate Canadians including Nijjar.
Canada has had “long-standing exchanges” with India on counter-terrorism concerns, Epp said, but what New Delhi considers Khalistan extremism doesn’t always meet the Canadian bar.
For example, Canada opted twice against extraditing Nijjar to India in the past decade over claims he had a role in a cinema bombing and an alleged terrorist camp.
Since Trudeau’s accusation, India caused Canada’s diplomatic presence to thin and temporarily stopped processing visas for Canadians, with Canada halting trade talks. Heightening tensions yet more, a foreign interference inquiry in Canada listed India as a potential source of meddling.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been more loudly urging Canada to get tough on Sikh separatism, said Sushant Singh, a senior researcher with the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research.
“There’s a backdrop, political and ideological, within the context of which the behaviour of the Indian government should be seen and analyzed,” he said.
Members of Modi’s own inner circle, including his national-security adviser, were shaped by waves of violence between separatist mobs and the Indian government in the ’80s, Singh said.
In Canada, some temples have openly venerated people connected with acts of violence like the 1985 bombing of an Air India flight.
But Canada insists it won’t rein in free speech.
Singh said Modi wants to send a message that India can’t be pushed around internationally, even as he consolidates power at home by clamping down on free expression and religious minorities.
“He wants to be seen as a strongman,” Singh said, especially ahead of a spring election.
“It is extremely unlikely that he will walk back or be apologetic about whatever has happened” in the Nijjar case.
If anything, part of Modi’s Hindu nationalist base supports extraterritorial assassinations.
Other Indian diplomats have been accused of conduct that runs afoul of international agreements.
In 2020, Germany convicted an Indian diplomat for spying on people advocating for Sikh and Kashmiri causes. Similar cases in the U.S. and the U.K. did not lead to prosecutions.
Still, as Canada’s allies suggest Trudeau’s allegations have merit, there has been “a significant walk-back on India’s part,” Singh said.
New Delhi shifted from outright denial to saying extrajudicial killings are not state policy.
“It actually showed that they may be worried,” he said, adding India may ultimately decide to blame the homicide on rogue elements — and, if enough pressure mounts, signal new checks and balance for intelligence agencies operating abroad.
In that context, if Ottawa is offering workshops on the rule of law, that should be seen as an attempt at constructive help rather than trying to “browbeat” or “embarrass” India, said Singh
Vijay Sappani, a fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, said it’s time for both sides to work toward restoring diplomatic and trade ties.
They have much in common, he said — on nuclear energy collaboration, Commonwealth values and diaspora ties. Trade opportunities are rich: India prizes uranium, lentils and potash from Saskatchewan.
“Canada is the closest to India in the Western world,” he said. “The fact that we have these fights going on now doesn’t make sense.”
Sappani said the Liberals struck the right tone after the Nijjar revelation by pledging to hold further diplomatic conversations with India in private. Trying to score points with public denunciation only drives a wedge, he said.
For meaningful progress, he said, India will want “a long-term solution on the glorification of Khalistani terrorists in Canada” — and for the Liberal government to stop hiding behind free speech, as Indian politicians have accused.
Political posturing around Sikh issues to attract votes is a tactic for all political parties at all levels of government in Canada, Sappani said.
“What really bugs India is that the level of political, partisanship involvement by Canadians on issues related to India is very high.”
The prime minister should avoid unnecessarily needling India, Sappani added, as some of his comments have damaged Canada’s reputation despite having little impact.
He listed examples like Trudeau saying his cabinet has more Sikhs than Modi’s, or criticizing the Indian government’s response to farmers’ protests
“The biggest challenge I think Trudeau may be facing in India is its perception, more than reality of what’s happening.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 18, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
