New Delhi: The Canadian media is divided over Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement in the House of Commons Monday that “agents of the government of India” were linked to the killing of Sikh extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June.
Since Monday, opinion and editorial pieces have been trying to maintain a tough balance by questioning Trudeau while also asking India to cooperate. While some newspapers, such as the Toronto Star, strongly criticised the Modi government’s action, dailies such as The Globe and Mail demanded clear evidence of Trudeau’s allegations.
Opinions within the media represent the larger political conversation surrounding Trudeau’s allegations. Canadian opposition leader Pierre Poilievre Tuesday demanded better clarity into the allegations even as he pointed out how Canada handled New Delhi and Beijing differently.
“I find it interesting that he knew about vast foreign interference by Beijing for many years, at the same time as Beijing had kept two Canadian citizens hostage. And he said nothing. And he did nothing. Just very interesting that that was the approach he took in that case,” Poilievre was quoted as saying in media reports.
Over the past year, the Canadian media had been reporting detailed claims of Chinese interference in the country’s last two elections in 2019 and 2021. As a result, the Trudeau government launched a public inquiry this 7 September to probe these allegations against Beijing.
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Questioning Trudeau
A common theme in Trudeau’s criticism has been his inability to provide clear evidence on the serious allegations against a strategic partner. The government has also been criticised for failing to curb foreign interference in domestic affairs.
The Globe and Mail’s editorial Thursday argued that the Ottawa government has left citizens and opposition parties in an ‘information vacuum’ and demanded that it be filled.
“Canadians deserve clarity on such an important matter, particularly given the potential for significant diplomatic and economic repercussions,” it said. The editorial also pointed out that not just Canada’s allies, no country has condemned India over Nijjar’s killing.
Michael Higgins in The National Post, too, demanded that Trudeau “present a convincing and factual case” for Canadians to support him.
The same newspaper’s Tristin Hopper criticised Trudeau for expecting India to accept Canada’s allegations “with the utmost seriousness” even as he hadn’t produced “supporting evidence such as forensic analysis, witness accounts, and detailed case files” which traditionally accompany such charges.
Similarly, a Monday editorial in Toronto Sun asserted “extraordinary allegations require extraordinary evidence”, calling the Trudeau government “woefully inadequate in countering foreign interference in Canadian democracy”.
Writing for The Globe and Mail, columnist Andrew Coyne argued Thursday that “India has had ample reason over the years to be annoyed by Canada’s indulgence of Sikh separatists, in general, and Sikh terrorists in particular”.
Meanwhile, Toronto Sun columnist Lorrie Goldstein commended Trudeau for doing the ‘right thing’ even if it was out of fear of the allegations coming out in the open ahead of the PM’s statement.
“…imagine if Canada’s allegations about India had been revealed in the media prior to Trudeau’s announcement. It would have been a political Armageddon for the Trudeau government,” Goldstein argued Monday.
In contrast, Deanna Horton, a Distinguished Fellow with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, wrote for The Globe and Mail Thursday that Ottawa should use the “hiatus in economic partnership talks with India to place more emphasis on the other important regional economies in the Indo-Pacific, namely Japan and South Korea, plus the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.”
Stance on India
While some Canadian media outlets strongly criticised the Modi government, others merely highlighted India’s shift towards authoritarianism and intolerance. Freelance journalist Jagdeesh Mann in the Toronto Star slammed India, drawing comparisons to the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 by Saudi Arabia.
Mann’s op-ed in the Toronto Star Wednesday asserted that over three decades, India “has spiralled from exhorting mobs to smash mosques to projecting a Bollywoodized chest-thumping faux-machismo that leads its vast online mobs to attack anyone questioning the country’s trajectory”.
Coyne also highlighted Friday, India’s democratic backsliding under the Modi government. He wrote, “It’s not exactly a stretch to imagine a government led by Mr. Modi shedding blood, or acting outside the bounds of law and convention. It’s been doing that for years at home, not only against Sikh separatists but Muslims, Christians and anyone else that stands in the way of its Hindu nationalist agenda. Why should it hesitate to do so abroad?”
Writing for The Globe and Mail Friday, John Packer, the Neuberger-Jesin Professor of International Conflict Resolution at the University of Ottawa, said, “And the link between extreme nationalist and separatist politics and violence is neither mere imagination nor benign in terms of fragile multiethnic and religiously diverse India… referencing the Hindu nationalist ideology that is driving his (Modi’s) country toward increasing intolerance, exclusion, conflict and volatility. In such contexts, violence ratchets up.”
Toronto Sun ran op-eds, such as Lorrie Goldstein’s article cited above, criticising the Trudeau government, its editorial Monday local time, came out in strong support of the government’s demand for India’s cooperation in the investigation surrounding Nijjar’s death.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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