TORONTO (AP) — Canada and India expelled six of each other’s diplomats Monday, one of the most severe actions yet in an escalating dispute over the June 2023 assassination of a Sikh activist in Canada.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada was expelling the Indian high commissioner and five other diplomats after police uncovered evidence of a targeted and worsening campaign against Canadian citizens by agents of the Indian government — and police identified the six diplomats as persons of interest.

“We will never tolerate the involvement of a foreign government threatening and killing Canadian citizens on Canadian soil,” Trudeau said, adding: “India has made a monumental mistake in choosing to use their diplomats and organized crime to attack Canadians.”

Shortly afterward, the Indian foreign ministry said it was expelling Canada’s acting high commissioner, deputy high commissioner and four other diplomats, adding that they were told to leave India by the end of Saturday.

The Indian ministry also rejected Canada’s diplomatic communication on Sunday saying the Indian ambassador was a “person of interest” in the assassination.

Trudeau said last year there were credible allegations that India’s government had links to the assassination in Canada of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Canada’s foreign minister, Mélanie Joly, said the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had gathered “ample, clear and concrete evidence which identified six individuals as persons of interest in the Nijjar case.”

She said India was asked to waive diplomatic and consular immunity and cooperate in the investigation but refused to cooperate.

“Regrettably, as India did not agree and given the ongoing public safety concerns for Canadians, Canada served notices of expulsion to these individuals,” Joly said.

She asked that India’s government support the ongoing investigation “as it remains in both our countries’ interest to get to the bottom of this.”

RCMP Mike Duheme said police have evidence allegedly tying Indian government agents to other homicides and violent acts in Canada.

He declined to provide specifics, but said there have been well over a dozen credible and imminent threats that have resulted in police warning members of the South Asian community, notably the pro-Khalistan, or Sikh independence, movement. He said attempts to have discussions with Indian law enforcement were unsuccessful.

“The team has learned a significant amount of information about the breadth and depth of criminal activity orchestrated by agents of the government of India, and consequential threats to the safety and security of Canadians and individuals living in Canada,” Duheme said.

India has rejected the accusation as absurd.

Nijjar, 45, was fatally shot in his pickup truck after he left the Sikh temple he led in Surrey, British Columbia. An Indian-born citizen of Canada, he owned a plumbing business and was a leader in what remains of a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland.

Four Indian nationals living in Canada were charged with Niijar’s murder.

India designated Nijjar a terrorist in 2020, and at the time of his death had been seeking his arrest for alleged involvement in an attack on a Hindu priest.

In response to Canada’s allegations, India told Canada last year to remove 41 of its 62 diplomats in the country. Relations between the countries have been frosty since then.

The pro-Khalistan movement is a thorny issue between India and Canada. New Delhi has repeatedly criticized Trudeau’s government for being soft on supporters of the Khalistan movement who live in Canada. The Khalistan movement is banned in India but has support among the Sikh diaspora, particularly in Canada.

India has been asking countries like Canada, Australia and the U.K. to take legal action against Sikh activists. India has particularly raised these concerns with Canada, where Sikhs make up nearly 2% of the country’s population.

The Indian foreign ministry said Monday 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 ministry also summoned Canada’s top diplomat in New Delhi and told him that “the baseless targeting” of the Indian high commissioner and other diplomats and officials in Canada “was completely unacceptable.”

Stewart Wheeler, the Canadian diplomat who was directed to leave India, told reporters after being summoned that India must investigate the allegations and that Canada “stands ready to cooperate with India.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department said in a statement that an Indian inquiry committee set up to investigate a plot to assassinate another prominent Sikh separatist leader living in New York would travel to Washington on Tuesday as part of its ongoing investigations to discuss the case.

“Additionally, India has informed the United States they are continuing their efforts to investigate other linkages of the former government employee and will determine follow-up steps, as necessary,” it said.

Last year, U,S, prosecutors said an Indian government official directed the plot to assassinate Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on American soil and announced charges against a man they said was part of the thwarted conspiracy.

The official was neither charged nor identified by name, but was described as a “senior field officer” with responsibilities in security management and intelligence, and was said to have previously served in India’s Central Reserve Police Force.

New Delhi at the time expressed concern after the U.S. raised the issue and said India takes it seriously.

___

Saaliq reported from New Delhi and Hussain from Srinagar, India.

This spooky season some people are opting to recycle old costumes in a bid to make Halloween more sustainable – and affordable.

Events promoting costume swapping, recycling or mending are popping up in communities across the country, and one expert says they’re sorely needed to counter the overconsumption and waste that Halloween triggers every year.

Oana Branzei, a professor of strategy and sustainability at Western University, says Halloween costumes represent “the most harmful form of consumption” since they’re typically made of multiple types of polyesters and plastics that are difficult to break down. They’re also often marketed as single-use products and end up in the landfill after just one wear.

“They have different materials that are never separated and therefore they end up in the … longest-term decomposing piles,” Branzei said.

One Nova Scotia municipality is citing its waste reduction efforts as the inspiration for a “Costume Fix ‘n’ Swap” event later this month, where people can drop off unwanted Halloween costumes, grab used ones and get someone to fix damaged trick-or-treating outfits.

Organizers of the Oct. 19 event in East Hants, north of Halifax, say someone with cosplaying experience will also provide advice on making budget-friendly costumes.

“There’s about 30,000 tons of textiles landfilled in Nova Scotia each year, so this event really ensures that some of that gets diverted,” said the municipality’s waste compliance officer, Ciera Robinson.

Textiles are the fifth largest type of plastic waste sent to Canadian landfills, with approximately 280 kilotons of synthetic textile products discarded in 2020, according to the federal government. Synthetic textiles are made from materials such as polyester, nylon and acrylic – all common elements in Halloween costumes and decorations.

Rise Consignment, a thrift shop in Victoria, will be holding its first-ever Halloween costume swap on Tuesday, with a focus on promoting sustainability. The shop is charging a $10 fee for the swap, with all proceeds going to a local organization supporting youth.

“I’ve just in the past kind of tried to educate people around this time of year about how wasteful Halloween can be and why they don’t need a brand-new plastic costume,” store owner Rylie Tarry said, adding that the goal is to “encourage people away from buying new, and buying crappy things.”

TOKKI, a Toronto-based children’s second-hand clothing store, held a seasonal swap last week with more than 75 kids turning up to get a Halloween costume. This was the seventh year the shop has hosted a costume swap.

“It’s a great way to just reuse other kids’ things from the year before,” TOKKI owner Amanda Newman said. “Having the opportunity to just swap out a costume rather than have to buy one also makes it a more affordable option and maybe a little less stressful in picking one as well.”

Branzei, the Western University professor, said she hopes Halloween costume swaps will lead to broader conversations about other forms of waste.

“This is a lever of change that has immediate impact. The material problems are the costumes, but the underlying problem is our consumption habits,” Branzei said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 14, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

EDMONTON – The Alberta government is proposing additional restrictions on wind and solar farms that conservationists think are more about limiting renewable energy than protecting the environment.

Last year the Alberta government imposed a seven-month moratorium on new renewable energy projects, after which Premier Danielle Smith announced her government would be taking an “agriculture first” approach to regulating renewable energy project locations.

That approach includes preventing renewable energy projects from being within 35 kilometres of “pristine viewscapes” and parks and protected areas, and a near total ban where soil conditions are prime for yielding crops.

“We need to ensure that we’re not sacrificing our future agricultural yields, or tourism dollars, or breathtaking viewscapes to rush renewables developments,” Smith said at the time.

Critics of the sudden moratorium and new renewable energy-only restrictions, such as Alberta Wildnerness Association conservationist Ruiping Luo, have said that the United Conservative government is being heavy-handed.

“It seems very clear that this is not about environmental protection,” said Luo.

Back in February Smith also said the government was planning to go beyond viewscapes and cropland and would consider imposing further restrictions related to Alberta’s native grassland areas and irrigated and irrigable land.

A first look at what those grassland and irrigated land restrictions could be was made available when the government asked some municipalities, industry officials, and landowners for input this summer.

According to a webinar used in that engagement process, Alberta is looking to prohibit wind and solar farms on irrigated land.

Land that could be irrigable could also be prohibited, though an analysis would be done before a decision is made.

That same webinar also shows Alberta is considering prohibiting renewable energy facilities from being erected on most grassland areas.

Luo, in a report last month, calculated that these new potential restrictions, on top of those announced by Smith earlier this year, could rule out almost 40 per cent of the province for renewable energy.

The viewscape buffer zone alone rules out close to 23 per cent of Alberta, Luo calculated.

For Luo and the Alberta Wilderness Association, protecting grassland and parks and even irrigated land is a good idea in theory, but she says the government’s restrictions won’t be effective unless applied across the entire energy industry.

“For a lot of these conditions, renewable energy isn’t the greatest threat,” Luo said.

For example, she said oil and gas extraction in Alberta’s southeast has a much more detrimental effect on Prairie grasslands than renewable energy projects like wind or solar farms.

“I think the restrictions start off from ideas that would be good and that would be beneficial environmentally, but the way they’re applied doesn’t make sense from a science perspective,” she said.

“We would especially agree with protecting native Prairie not just from renewable energy, but from all developments… because so much has been lost.”

Luo said she’s sent both her report and a letter to the Alberta government outlining her concerns about the new potential restrictions, but has yet to receive a response.

Jason Wang, a senior electricity analyst with the clean energy think tank the Pembina Institute agreed with Luo, and said if Alberta wants to protect grasslands and agriculture lands then restrictions like these would need to be applied across the energy sector, rather than solely on renewables.

“It feels very elementary to say, but these sectors aren’t being treated in the same way,” Wang said.

In August Wang and the Pembina Institute published a report analyzing the aftermath of the government’s seven-month moratorium, and found that 53 wind and solar projects were abandoned after the announcement.

Those projects, on paper, had a combined energy generation capacity of 8,600 megawatts, which would be enough to power every home in Alberta. However, there was no guarantee that every project would have been approved based on existing regulations by the Alberta Utilities Commission, the agency responsible for regulating the development of energy projects.

In an email, Ashley Stevenson, the press secretary for Alberta’s Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf, said that the renewable energy restrictions are designed with environmental protection in mind.

“These new rules ensure responsible land use, protecting the environment, Albertans’ property rights, Alberta’s beautiful landscapes, and the best agricultural industry in the world,” Stevenson said.

“Our government is focused on putting Albertans first, not industrial power projects.”

Stevenson said the government’s full suite of regulatory changes is still being developed, but the government is on track to have the policies finalized before the end of 2024.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 11, 2024.

TORONTO (AP) — Canada and India expelled six of each other’s diplomats Monday, one of the most severe actions yet in an escalating dispute over the June 2023 assassination of a Sikh activist in Canada.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada was expelling the Indian high commissioner and five other diplomats after police uncovered evidence of a targeted and worsening campaign against Canadian citizens by agents of the Indian government — and police identified the six diplomats as persons of interest.

“We will never tolerate the involvement of a foreign government threatening and killing Canadian citizens on Canadian soil,” Trudeau said, adding: “India has made a monumental mistake in choosing to use their diplomats and organized crime to attack Canadians.”

Shortly afterward, the Indian foreign ministry said it was expelling Canada’s acting high commissioner, deputy high commissioner and four other diplomats, adding that they were told to leave India by the end of Saturday.

The Indian ministry also rejected Canada’s diplomatic communication on Sunday saying the Indian ambassador was a “person of interest” in the assassination.

Trudeau said last year there were credible allegations that India’s government had links to the assassination in Canada of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Canada’s foreign minister, Mélanie Joly, said the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had gathered “ample, clear and concrete evidence which identified six individuals as persons of interest in the Nijjar case.”

She said India was asked to waive diplomatic and consular immunity and cooperate in the investigation but refused to cooperate.

“Regrettably, as India did not agree and given the ongoing public safety concerns for Canadians, Canada served notices of expulsion to these individuals,” Joly said.

She asked that India’s government support the ongoing investigation “as it remains in both our countries’ interest to get to the bottom of this.”

RCMP Mike Duheme said police have evidence allegedly tying Indian government agents to other homicides and violent acts in Canada.

He declined to provide specifics, but said there have been well over a dozen credible and imminent threats that have resulted in police warning members of the South Asian community, notably the pro-Khalistan, or Sikh independence, movement. He said attempts to have discussions with Indian law enforcement were unsuccessful.

“The team has learned a significant amount of information about the breadth and depth of criminal activity orchestrated by agents of the government of India, and consequential threats to the safety and security of Canadians and individuals living in Canada,” Duheme said.

India has rejected the accusation as absurd.

Nijjar, 45, was fatally shot in his pickup truck after he left the Sikh temple he led in Surrey, British Columbia. An Indian-born citizen of Canada, he owned a plumbing business and was a leader in what remains of a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland.

Four Indian nationals living in Canada were charged with Niijar’s murder.

India designated Nijjar a terrorist in 2020, and at the time of his death had been seeking his arrest for alleged involvement in an attack on a Hindu priest.

In response to Canada’s allegations, India told Canada last year to remove 41 of its 62 diplomats in the country. Relations between the countries have been frosty since then.

The pro-Khalistan movement is a thorny issue between India and Canada. New Delhi has repeatedly criticized Trudeau’s government for being soft on supporters of the Khalistan movement who live in Canada. The Khalistan movement is banned in India but has support among the Sikh diaspora, particularly in Canada.

India has been asking countries like Canada, Australia and the U.K. to take legal action against Sikh activists. India has particularly raised these concerns with Canada, where Sikhs make up nearly 2% of the country’s population.

The Indian foreign ministry said Monday 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 ministry also summoned Canada’s top diplomat in New Delhi and told him that “the baseless targeting” of the Indian high commissioner and other diplomats and officials in Canada “was completely unacceptable.”

Stewart Wheeler, the Canadian diplomat who was directed to leave India, told reporters after being summoned that India must investigate the allegations and that Canada “stands ready to cooperate with India.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department said in a statement that an Indian inquiry committee set up to investigate a plot to assassinate another prominent Sikh separatist leader living in New York would travel to Washington on Tuesday as part of its ongoing investigations to discuss the case.

“Additionally, India has informed the United States they are continuing their efforts to investigate other linkages of the former government employee and will determine follow-up steps, as necessary,” it said.

Last year, U,S, prosecutors said an Indian government official directed the plot to assassinate Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on American soil and announced charges against a man they said was part of the thwarted conspiracy.

The official was neither charged nor identified by name, but was described as a “senior field officer” with responsibilities in security management and intelligence, and was said to have previously served in India’s Central Reserve Police Force.

New Delhi at the time expressed concern after the U.S. raised the issue and said India takes it seriously.

___

Saaliq reported from New Delhi and Hussain from Srinagar, India.

This spooky season some people are opting to recycle old costumes in a bid to make Halloween more sustainable – and affordable.

Events promoting costume swapping, recycling or mending are popping up in communities across the country, and one expert says they’re sorely needed to counter the overconsumption and waste that Halloween triggers every year.

Oana Branzei, a professor of strategy and sustainability at Western University, says Halloween costumes represent “the most harmful form of consumption” since they’re typically made of multiple types of polyesters and plastics that are difficult to break down. They’re also often marketed as single-use products and end up in the landfill after just one wear.

“They have different materials that are never separated and therefore they end up in the … longest-term decomposing piles,” Branzei said.

One Nova Scotia municipality is citing its waste reduction efforts as the inspiration for a “Costume Fix ‘n’ Swap” event later this month, where people can drop off unwanted Halloween costumes, grab used ones and get someone to fix damaged trick-or-treating outfits.

Organizers of the Oct. 19 event in East Hants, north of Halifax, say someone with cosplaying experience will also provide advice on making budget-friendly costumes.

“There’s about 30,000 tons of textiles landfilled in Nova Scotia each year, so this event really ensures that some of that gets diverted,” said the municipality’s waste compliance officer, Ciera Robinson.

Textiles are the fifth largest type of plastic waste sent to Canadian landfills, with approximately 280 kilotons of synthetic textile products discarded in 2020, according to the federal government. Synthetic textiles are made from materials such as polyester, nylon and acrylic – all common elements in Halloween costumes and decorations.

Rise Consignment, a thrift shop in Victoria, will be holding its first-ever Halloween costume swap on Tuesday, with a focus on promoting sustainability. The shop is charging a $10 fee for the swap, with all proceeds going to a local organization supporting youth.

“I’ve just in the past kind of tried to educate people around this time of year about how wasteful Halloween can be and why they don’t need a brand-new plastic costume,” store owner Rylie Tarry said, adding that the goal is to “encourage people away from buying new, and buying crappy things.”

TOKKI, a Toronto-based children’s second-hand clothing store, held a seasonal swap last week with more than 75 kids turning up to get a Halloween costume. This was the seventh year the shop has hosted a costume swap.

“It’s a great way to just reuse other kids’ things from the year before,” TOKKI owner Amanda Newman said. “Having the opportunity to just swap out a costume rather than have to buy one also makes it a more affordable option and maybe a little less stressful in picking one as well.”

Branzei, the Western University professor, said she hopes Halloween costume swaps will lead to broader conversations about other forms of waste.

“This is a lever of change that has immediate impact. The material problems are the costumes, but the underlying problem is our consumption habits,” Branzei said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 14, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

EDMONTON – The Alberta government is proposing additional restrictions on wind and solar farms that conservationists think are more about limiting renewable energy than protecting the environment.

Last year the Alberta government imposed a seven-month moratorium on new renewable energy projects, after which Premier Danielle Smith announced her government would be taking an “agriculture first” approach to regulating renewable energy project locations.

That approach includes preventing renewable energy projects from being within 35 kilometres of “pristine viewscapes” and parks and protected areas, and a near total ban where soil conditions are prime for yielding crops.

“We need to ensure that we’re not sacrificing our future agricultural yields, or tourism dollars, or breathtaking viewscapes to rush renewables developments,” Smith said at the time.

Critics of the sudden moratorium and new renewable energy-only restrictions, such as Alberta Wildnerness Association conservationist Ruiping Luo, have said that the United Conservative government is being heavy-handed.

“It seems very clear that this is not about environmental protection,” said Luo.

Back in February Smith also said the government was planning to go beyond viewscapes and cropland and would consider imposing further restrictions related to Alberta’s native grassland areas and irrigated and irrigable land.

A first look at what those grassland and irrigated land restrictions could be was made available when the government asked some municipalities, industry officials, and landowners for input this summer.

According to a webinar used in that engagement process, Alberta is looking to prohibit wind and solar farms on irrigated land.

Land that could be irrigable could also be prohibited, though an analysis would be done before a decision is made.

That same webinar also shows Alberta is considering prohibiting renewable energy facilities from being erected on most grassland areas.

Luo, in a report last month, calculated that these new potential restrictions, on top of those announced by Smith earlier this year, could rule out almost 40 per cent of the province for renewable energy.

The viewscape buffer zone alone rules out close to 23 per cent of Alberta, Luo calculated.

For Luo and the Alberta Wilderness Association, protecting grassland and parks and even irrigated land is a good idea in theory, but she says the government’s restrictions won’t be effective unless applied across the entire energy industry.

“For a lot of these conditions, renewable energy isn’t the greatest threat,” Luo said.

For example, she said oil and gas extraction in Alberta’s southeast has a much more detrimental effect on Prairie grasslands than renewable energy projects like wind or solar farms.

“I think the restrictions start off from ideas that would be good and that would be beneficial environmentally, but the way they’re applied doesn’t make sense from a science perspective,” she said.

“We would especially agree with protecting native Prairie not just from renewable energy, but from all developments… because so much has been lost.”

Luo said she’s sent both her report and a letter to the Alberta government outlining her concerns about the new potential restrictions, but has yet to receive a response.

Jason Wang, a senior electricity analyst with the clean energy think tank the Pembina Institute agreed with Luo, and said if Alberta wants to protect grasslands and agriculture lands then restrictions like these would need to be applied across the energy sector, rather than solely on renewables.

“It feels very elementary to say, but these sectors aren’t being treated in the same way,” Wang said.

In August Wang and the Pembina Institute published a report analyzing the aftermath of the government’s seven-month moratorium, and found that 53 wind and solar projects were abandoned after the announcement.

Those projects, on paper, had a combined energy generation capacity of 8,600 megawatts, which would be enough to power every home in Alberta. However, there was no guarantee that every project would have been approved based on existing regulations by the Alberta Utilities Commission, the agency responsible for regulating the development of energy projects.

In an email, Ashley Stevenson, the press secretary for Alberta’s Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf, said that the renewable energy restrictions are designed with environmental protection in mind.

“These new rules ensure responsible land use, protecting the environment, Albertans’ property rights, Alberta’s beautiful landscapes, and the best agricultural industry in the world,” Stevenson said.

“Our government is focused on putting Albertans first, not industrial power projects.”

Stevenson said the government’s full suite of regulatory changes is still being developed, but the government is on track to have the policies finalized before the end of 2024.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 11, 2024.