Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly confirmed Thursday that 41 Canadian diplomats have left India after New Delhi threatened to revoke their diplomatic immunity. CBC News reported earlier that a large number of them had departed the country overnight.
The departures followed two weeks of negotiations between India and Canada after India issued a demand for “parity” in the number of diplomats present in the two countries, a source with knowledge of the situation told CBC News.
That demand was part of an angry reaction by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s allegation last month that Indian agents were involved in the murder of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in Surrey, B.C. on June 18.
India claimed to have only 21 accredited diplomats in Canada and said that Canada had 62 in India, spread across its High Commission in New Delhi and four consulates in Mumbai, Chandigarh and Bengaluru.
Canada ‘will not reciprocate’ after India revokes diplomats’ immunity: Joly
Featured VideoForeign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly says Canada facilitated the safe departure of 41 diplomats who were at risk of having their diplomatic immunity stripped by India. She also said Canada will not retaliate by threatening India’s diplomats in Canada with the same treatment.
Joly said Canada will have to pause in-person diplomatic services in all the offices except for the one in New Delhi because of the reduced staff complement.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller told reporters that visa application centres will operate normally because they are run by a third-party contractor. He added processing those applications likely will now take more time.
“Clients might see that their applications take longer to process and other questions take longer to answer,” he said.
Government officials speaking to reporters on background said visa processing will be severely affected, noting that immigration officials review applications from India, Nepal and Bhutan. They said the number of Canadian immigration officials in India has been pared down from 27 to five.
Officials said that 45 per cent of Canada’s international students, 27 per cent of new permanent residents and 22 per cent of temporary foreign workers come from India.
New Delhi gave Canada until October 10 to withdraw 41 diplomats to make the two diplomatic contingents equal in size, sources said. If the diplomats remained in the country, India said, they would lose their diplomatic immunity from arrest and prosecution.
Those conversations now appear to have come to an end. Joly said Thursday that India had said it would remove diplomatic immunity from the 41 Canadians and their families by Friday, a date she called “arbitrary.”
“A unilateral revocation of diplomatic privilege and immunities is contrary to international law,” she said. “Threatening to do so is unreasonable and escalatory.”
Canada won’t retaliate, Joly says
Canadian officials have questioned India’s arithmetic, which they say does not give an accurate picture of the respective sizes of the two diplomatic missions.
India’s claim to have only 21 accredited diplomats in Canada appears to conflict with the registry of accredited foreign representatives in Canada, which shows that India has 60 in Canada.
Joly wouldn’t comment on the number of India’s diplomats but said the government doesn’t plan to retaliate by expelling any from Canada because it would put other diplomats at risk.
“Because this is so unprecedented and would put so many countries’ different diplomats around the world in danger, we decided not to reciprocate,” she said.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly responds to a question during a news conference, Thursday, October 19, 2023 in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
The Indian demand came as a rude surprise for Canada, as it represented a dramatic escalation from the earlier tit-for-tat expulsions.
“I can’t think of another instance … short of breaking diplomatic relations with another country and taking everybody out,” said former Canadian diplomat Gar Pardy. “I can’t think of another incident over the last 40 or 50 years where something like this has happened. Even in our worst days of our relationship with the Soviet Union, usually there were smaller numbers are involved.”
Former Canadian diplomat Jeff Nankivell, president of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, agreed that the sanction was extraordinary.
“I can’t think of a of a precedent, certainly no precedent in the Canada-India relationship, and to do it on on the scale that is being reported certainly would be a significant drag on Canada’s diplomatic operations across India,” he said.
Nankivell said Canada needs large consular operations in India to handle the volume of visa applications from that country, which is both the top source country for international students to Canada and the top source country for immigrants to Canada overall.
Mike Burgess, head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), told Australia’s public broadcaster on Wednesday that he had no reason to doubt the allegation that the Indian government was involved in Nijjar’s death.
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.
