B.C. smashes advance voting record as forecast calls for election-day drenching

OTTAWA – India’s foreign ministry says Canada is trying to smear New Delhi, as the country doubles down on rejecting claims its government officials have worked with criminal gangs in the extortion, coercion and murder of Canadian citizens.

But Canada is not the only country that has accused Indian officials of plotting an assassination on foreign soil. The U.S. Justice Department announced criminal charges against an Indian government employee on Thursday in an alleged foiled plot to kill a Sikh separatist leader living in New York City.

The case announced by the Justice Department involves Vikash Yadav, who authorities say directed the New York plot from India. He faces murder-for-hire charges in a planned killing that prosecutors have previously said was meant to precede a string of other politically motivated murders in the United States and Canada.

The Indian government didn’t immediately provide comment on the U.S. charge, but earlier Thursday, External Affairs Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal denied that India was in cahoots with India-based mobsters in Canada.

He also raised long-standing cases where Canadian authorities have resisted India’s attempts to extradite criminals to India, suggesting some at the heart of Canada’s allegations are among those India has wanted to prosecute.

“It is strange that people who we asked to be deported” are being blamed by the Canadians for “committing crimes in Canada,” Jaiswal said.

“There is a clear pattern to smear India, for reasons best known to them.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the RCMP went public this week with allegations that Indian diplomats were targeting Sikh separatists in Canada by sharing information about them with their government back home.

They said top Indian officials were then passing that information along to Indian organized crime groups who were targeting the activists, who are Canadian citizens, with drive-by shootings, extortions and even murder.

Canada has also alleged Indian government agents were linked to the June 2023 killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C.

The two countries each ordered the expulsion of top diplomats this week over the accusations.

The U.S. criminal case was announced the same week as two members of an Indian inquiry committee investigating the New York plot were in Washington to meet with U.S. officials.

Canada says Indian officials have not been co-operative in the Canadian case.

The Nijjar killing has soured India-Canada ties for more than a year, and while Canadian officials say they have forwarded evidence of the allegations to Indian authorities, the Indian government continues to deny it has seen any.

Jaiswal said again on Thursday that Canada has provided no evidence of its allegations surrounding attacks on Sikh activists, contradicting Trudeau’s statements this week that investigators privately shared information with Indian counterparts, who have not co-operated.

At the same time, Jaiswal accused Canada of failing to take action against Sikhs living in Canada who face terrorism charges in India and who are accused of being part of a Sikh secessionist campaign in India’s northern Punjab state.

Jaiswal said India’s 26 extradition requests have been pending in Canada for a decade or more. He also said that several criminals had provisional arrest requests pending with Canadian authorities.

“Some of them are charged with terror and terror-related crimes (in India). So far, no action has been taken by the Canadian side on our requests. This is very serious,” Jaiswal said.

India has repeatedly criticized the Canadian government for being soft on supporters of what is known as the Khalistan movement, which is banned in India but has support among the Sikh diaspora, particularly in Canada.

Trudeau said Wednesday that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi underlined to him at a G20 summit in India last year that he wanted Canada to arrest people who have been outspoken against the Indian government. Trudeau said he told Modi that he felt the actions fall within free speech in Canada.

Trudeau added that he told Modi his government would work with India on concerns about terrorism, incitement of hate or anything that is unacceptable in Canada. But Trudeau also noted that advocating for separatism, while not Canadian government policy, is not illegal in Canada.

In February, a senior Global Affairs Canada official who oversees Ottawa’s diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific told members of Parliament that Canada had “long-standing exchanges” with India on counterterrorism concerns.

“How India defines extremism or even terrorism does not always compute in our legal system,” Weldon Epp told MPs.

He noted that 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, due to a lack of sufficient evidence. He added at the time that Canadian officials had done “effectively workshops with the Indian government, to explain what our standards legally would be” for terrorism extraditions.

On Monday, the RCMP said it had identified India’s top diplomat in the country and five other diplomats as persons of interest in the Nijjar killing. The force also said it uncovered evidence of an intensifying campaign against Canadians by agents of the Indian government.

Nijjar, 45, was fatally shot last year in his pickup truck after he left the Sikh temple he led near Vancouver. 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 Nijjar’s murder and are awaiting trial.

On Wednesday, Liberal MP Chandra Arya said Canada needs to do more to call out what he called “Khalistani violent extremism” in Canada, saying that he required RCMP protection to take part in a Hindu event last week in Edmonton.

“Recent revelations and developments are impacting Canada and India’s ability to collaborate on this issue,” he wrote on the platform X. He said New Delhi should not interfere in Canada, but rather help deal with extremism.

“It is critical that we all recognize the importance of eliminating cross-border threats posed by Khalistani extremism and resume our efforts to address it effectively.”

He added that leaders need to speak out, without directly naming Trudeau.

“I have yet to hear any politician or government official offer reassurance to Hindu-Canadians, many of whom feel concerned and fearful for their safety in light of recent events,” he wrote.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.

— With files from The Associated Press

An Amber Alert for a baby boy in Saskatchewan has been cancelled after police say the infant was found and appears safe.

RCMP initially said a five-day-old baby boy had been taken from a health clinic in Montreal Lake.

They later said he had actually been taken from a residence in the community, roughly 100 kilometres north of Prince Albert.

Police say the baby had been taken by his father.

They say the father turned himself in without incident at the Big River RCMP detachment, shortly after the Amber Alert was issued in the late afternoon.

RCMP say the boy was assessed by emergency medical services as a precaution.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

OTTAWA – First Nations chiefs have voted to reject a landmark $47.8-billion child welfare reform deal, reached in July with the Canadian government.

At a special chiefs assembly in Calgary hosted by the Assembly of First Nations, 267 out of 414 chiefs voted against a resolution in support of the deal after a lengthy debate that at points was emotionally charged as they argued either for or against it.

Resolutions remain on the agenda for the final day of the gathering on Friday, including for chiefs to be given another 90 days to review the deal, bringing another vote in January.

“Our leaders have rejected this draft agreement because they know what’s at stake: our children,” said Mary Teegee, the chair of the Our Children Our Way Society, in a statement.

“This was not a good agreement: we have to do better for our children.”

The deal was struck between Canada, the Chiefs of Ontario, Nishnawbe Aski Nation and the Assembly of First Nations after a nearly two-decade legal fight over the federal government’s underfunding of on-reserve child welfare services.

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal said that was discriminatory.

It tasked Canada with coming to an agreement with First Nations to reform the system, and also with compensating children who were torn from their families and put in foster care.

Chiefs and service providers critiqued the deal for months, saying it didn’t go far enough to ensure the discrimination stops, and have blasted the federal government for what they say is its failure to consult with First Nations in negotiations.

In a statement Thursday night, Nishnawbe Aski Nation expressed its dissatisfaction with the deal not being ratified by chiefs in assembly.

“Leaders from across Ontario voiced their support and did their best for our children and families today, and we want to highlight the shameful way that the defeat of today’s resolution was celebrated by those in the room – many being those in the child welfare agencies who will continue to benefit from the status quo,” the statement says.

“Our leadership has given us a strong mandate to reject the status quo and assert their authority to control the care and well-being of their children … We will regroup, strategize, and begin discussions with the appropriate federal and provincial officials on a new path forward.”

Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, which helped bring forward the initial human rights complaint, said before the vote that chiefs can do better than the deal that’s been reached, and that she cannot endorse it.

“I want to see a day when we get the discrimination stopped and it doesn’t happen again — and we can get there,” Blackstock said.

“Not in a long time; we got all the tools to be able to get there.”

The national chief of the Assembly of First Nations stressed on Wednesday and Thursday that wasn’t the case, saying a change in government could throw the reforms into question, while Blackstock highlighted the reforms are required by a legal order, not political will.

“I’ve lived through the Harper years, and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal survived through the Harper years,” she said, referencing former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper.

“Everything is on the table.”

In another address, Blackstock blasted the federal government for what she called a breach in its duty to consult with First Nations during negotiations, and after the deal was made public.

“Where is Canada?” she asked.

In a statement Wednesday, a spokesperson for the minister of Indigenous services said the department won’t tell First Nations organizations how to engage their own members.

The Assembly of First Nations is not a rights-holding organization, but rather a forum where 630 rights-holding chiefs across Canada can advocate for their concerns.

The federal government has a duty to consult with First Nations when its actions could affect their rights.

Carolyn Buffalo, a mother from Montana First Nation in Maskwacis, Alta., was one representative plaintiff in the class action for Jordan’s Principle families.

Jordan’s Principle is a legal rule named after Jordan River Anderson, a First Nations child born in 1999 with multiple health issues that kept him in hospital from birth. He didn’t leave the hospital until he died at the age of five, and governments couldn’t agree on who should pay for his home-based care.

Buffalo’s son, Noah, has cerebral palsy and requires continuous care. But Ottawa has been making that care difficult for him to access on reserve.

Speaking through tears at the assembly earlier Thursday, Buffalo said she thought chiefs would vote down the deal she and others have worked on for years. She said kids would be left without protection if the deal was rejected.

“I didn’t even want to come to this assembly because I knew that politically it was going to be tough,” she said.

“Do I trust the AFN? No. Do I trust the Liberal government? No, but I am a supporter of this legal process. That’s why we agreed to join and be part of it. If I thought for one second that this was going to be harmful to our people, I wouldn’t be part of this … go ahead, scuttle the agreement. But if the deal is lost, just remember what I said.”

Another representative plaintiff, Ashley Bach, was removed from her community as a child. She urged chiefs to remember that many children in care are watching the assembly, even though the topic is traumatizing for them and some conversations have been hostile.

“This is a once-in-a-childhood agreement, because if we take too long we’re going to lose another generation,” she said.

“If we wait years and years for a perfect agreement, they won’t be kids anymore. They’ll be like me.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.