"Canada and its allies require accountability from the Government of India": CSIS Director
"Canada and its allies require accountability from the Government of India": CSIS Director
In its 2023 Annual Report, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) reiterated strong ongoing concerns about Indian interference activities in Canada, even after the assassination of Bhai Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June 2023. In a section focussed on Indian foreign interference, CSIS Director, David Vigneault, is quoted:
“Canada and its allies require accountability from the Government of India concerning its potential involvement in the murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil.”
This sentiment has been echoed by the Prime Minister who is referenced, stating “the Government’s top priorities were for law enforcement and security agencies to ensure the continued safety of all Canadians, and for all steps to be taken to hold perpetrators of this murder to account.” A similar statement was also recently reiterated by Foreign Affairs Minister, Mélanie Joly.
In its overview of foreign interference and espionage in Canada, CSIS lumps India into a broad category of hostile foreign states including the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, noting that “these states and their intelligence services continued to engage in a variety of hostile foreign interference and espionage activities to advance their objectives and interests.”
Tying the assassination of Bhai Hardeep Singh Nijjar to the attempted murder of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a American-Canadian dual citizen living in New York, the Service describes the series of events that let to a deterioration in Canada-India ties in the Fall of 2023:
In September 2023, Prime Minister (PM) Just Trudeau announced to the House of Commons that Canada’s security agencies were pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the Government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in Surrey, British Columbia, in early June. The statement led to a deterioration of bilateral relations between Canada and India. Later in November, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) unsealed an indictment describing an alleged murder-for-hire plot by an individual, Nikhil Gupta, whom the indictment alleges was conspiring with a Government of India official. The alleged target was a dual American-Canadian citizen residing in New York.
One of the most surprising details disclosed in the report is that following the deterioration in the bilateral relations between Canada and India, “low-sophistication cyber activities against Canada” were observed by “India-aligned non-state cyber actors” although no direct ties have been established to the Government of India at the time of writing. This appears to confirm disinformation patterns observed by other Canadian agencies and raised during the Commission.
The disclosures made in the Annual Report, closely align with the testimony of several senior CSIS officials before Canada’s Public Inquiry Into Foreign Interference. Counter Foreign Interference Coordinator, Bo Basler, appeared before Justice Hogue and made a shocking revelation that CSIS believes that India is a “clear second” to China in terms of the level of foreign interference threat to Canada. Going even further, Basler and his anonymized colleagues confirmed that India’s activities have been “corrosive to Canadian democratic processes and to regional community cohesion”, particularly because of India’s targeting of Sikh activists advocating for a sovereign Sikh homeland, Khalistan.
While a panel of senior CSIS officials, including Director David Vigneault, could not publicly confirm the details of proposed Threat Reduction Measures against India in 2017 as reported in the media, Director Vigneault did raise a number of concerns about Indian foreign interference activities. This includes an explicit targeting of a broad spectrum of Sikh activists as so-called “extremists” using a number of means, including disinformation and overt means of influence to criminalize activists on the basis of India’s overly broad anti-terror legislation.
A 2020 immigration decision by Canada’s IRB sheds some light on the nature of such allegations through a single case study. The IRB panel assessed Indian allegations made against an unnamed Canadian resident visiting India in 2016 who was accused of various terror offences, including being an associate of Bhai Hardeep Singh Nijjar. After undergoing torture during his seven months of detention, the IRB noted that the Indian government failed to produce even a “single shred of evidence” substantiating the associations. Despite the fact that he has still not been tried, the impacted individual has still not been able to return to Canada due to Indian prohibitions, leading the IRB to conclude that “the Indian authorities have treated the appellant in an unjust and unconscionable way, that violates not only Canadian legal principles but international legal norms.”
In her initial report, released on May 3, Justice Hogue confirmed CSIS’ observations based on the evidence presented before her in the public and in camera hearings:
India's interest in Canada relates to Canada's large South Asian community. India views part of these communities as fostering an anti-India sentiment, and represents a threat to Indian stability and national security. India does not differentiate between lawful, pro-Khalistani political advocacy and the relatively small Canada-based Khalistani violent extremism. It views anyone aligned with Khalistani separatism as a seditious threat to India.
Readers can access the Sikh Coalition’s submissions to the Commissioner here, and access the documents pertaining to India that were uncovered by the Coalition here.
For those interested in reading more, we have compiled a number of resources below:
Indian Foreign Interference: Intimidation, Disinformation, and Undermining Canadian Institutions (British Columbia Gurdwaras Council) and Ontario Gurdwaras Committee (OGC)
Police makes arrests in killing of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar (Evan Dyer, CBC News)
An assassination plot on American soil reveals a darker side of Modi’s India (Greg Miller, Gerry Shih, and Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post)
Indian government ordered killings in Pakistan, intelligence officials claim (Hannah Ellis-Petersen, Aakash Hassan, and Shah Meer Baloch, The Guardian)
In Conversation With Former CSIS Exec Dan Stanton On Foreign Interference (Jaskaran Sandhu, Baaz News)
Exposed: India's Disinformation Campaign Against Canada's Sikhs (World Sikh Organization)
Indian Media Desperately Trying to Reframe Farmers Protest in Canada (Balpreet Singh, Baaz News)
Who killed Hardeep Singh Nijjar? (Joanna Chiu, Toronto Star)
A public probe of foreign election interference should also look at India, Sikh organizations say (Catharine Tunney, CBC)
Indian government complained to Ottawa about safety of diplomatic premises after Sikh protest (Steven Chase, Globe and Mail)
A website spread disinformation about Canada. Why did major Indian outlets treat it as news? (Joanna Chiu, Toronto Star)