John Ivison: Canada can save our friendship with India, but probably not while Trudeau’s around

An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country, said the 17th century British politician Henry Wotton.

That maxim came to mind for some reason while watching the recent CTV Question Period interview with the persona non grata Indian high commissioner, Sanjay Kumar Verma.

His weekend conversation with host Vassy Kapelos was a triumph in the art of denial.

Canada, he said, has yet to produce a shred of evidence that Indian officials, including himself, were involved in relaying information to New Delhi, from whence it was passed on to criminal gangs to target and murder Sikh extremists across North America.

Kapelos pointed out that Canadian officials wanted to pay a visit to Delhi to pass on such evidence to their Indian counterparts but were rebuffed.

Verma explained that the effort was unsuccessful because the necessary visas and program agenda for their visit were not submitted in time.

You couldn’t make it up. Unless you work for the Indian government, apparently.

The interview could have descended into farce at that stage, but credit to Kapelos for keeping it on track because it proved instructive, and indicated there may be ways to repair this crucial relationship — if not, perhaps, under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s leadership.

For one thing, Verma suggested that if the “ample, clear and concrete evidence” that Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says exists is presented in court, the Indians will co-operate, as they have with U.S. officials on investigations there.

He said India condemns extrajudicial killings anywhere in the world and that India has formed a “high-level committee” to help the Americans solve an attempted assassination on their soil.

Last week, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment that alleges Indian agents based in New Delhi hired a hitman to murder a Khalistani separatist in New York. Vikash Yadav, who works (or worked) for the Indian intelligence service is alleged to have masterminded the plot and ordered another Indian government employee, Nikhil Gupta, to find a hitman in the U.S.

The man Gupta contacted was a source working for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and the supposed hitman was an undercover DEA agent, the indictment says.

On June 18 last year, masked gunmen murdered Hardeep Singh Nijjar at a Sikh temple in British Columbia and Gupta told the hitman that Nijjar was also a target. “We have so many targets,” he is alleged to have said.

The Indian government has denied involvement, and as Verma pointed out, has set up a committee to help American investigators.

The high commissioner claimed that the U.S. and Canadian cases are different, despite the link made in the indictment. “It’s two different countries and two different crimes,” he said. “Canadian agencies have not given us a shred of evidence to act upon.”

But the inference of that statement is that if Canada does present compelling evidence in court, India will be forced to act. “We are a rule of law country,” he said.

The other point Verma made that should not be underestimated is the importance to New Delhi of the 26 extradition requests India has filed with Canada.

This is the nub of the whole issue — Verma did not put it as such but India subscribes to the Latin maxim aut dedere aut judicare (extradite or prosecute).

The fact that Canada will do neither provides justification in the eyes of many Indians for extreme measures.

As an aside, I was asked to appear on an English-language Indian TV news show to discuss the spat. Although I declined, the host wondered aloud to me why the Canadian government has turned a blind eye to extremism and refused the extradition requests. “One cannot harbour snakes in their backyard and blame India when they bite or create chaos,” she said.

This perceived imperiousness has sparked resentment and anger in India. “Gone are the days when the so-called developed countries ask a developing country (for something) and they would run after them and do it,” Verma told Kapelos.

Canada needs to show India that it takes its concerns seriously.

It will not happen overnight, but if relations are to improve, Canadian law enforcement needs to force the Indians to back down in the face of overwhelming evidence.

Then Canada has to convince India that it is prepared to counter Khalistani extremism on its soil.

Canada appears to be upping its game when it comes to terror financing. FINTRAC, Canada’s anti-money laundering unit, supported 292 complex, cross-jurisdictional investigations last year, up from fewer than a dozen a decade before.

On the policing front, Canadian forces have laid many more hate crime charges this year than previously (for example, Toronto’s police service has made arrests in around one-third of hate incidents this year, compared to around 18 per cent last year). This is in large measure due to the conflict in the Middle East, but the statistics suggest law enforcement is becoming more used to laying public incitement of hatred charges and there is even a renewed push for new legislation to criminalize the glorification of terror.

The extradition issue is more ticklish, but if Canada and India are to normalize relations, both sides need to bend.

The two countries have an extradition treaty, signed in 1987, two years after the Air India bombing.

At the time, both sides were keen to enable Indian extradition of Canadian-based Sikh extremists.

That was then.

Canada’s Justice Department does not break out separate figures for India, but the statistics for extraditions outside the U.S. show the Liberal government has been very reluctant to surrender suspects. Between 2006 and 2015, 39 per cent of all extradition requests received were granted; between 2015 and 2023, the surrender rate fell to 13 per cent.

Canada has not extradited anyone to India since 2019.

Extradition is a political call by the minister of justice and there have been growing concerns among parliamentarians about human rights. Last year, the House justice committee called for Canada to withdraw from extradition treaties with 10 countries who have adopted “human rights violating counter-terrorism laws,” in the eyes of a UN special rapporteur, including India (and bizarrely, Denmark).

The Department of Foreign Affairs can negotiate diplomatic assurances with partner countries, but the World Sikh Organization, which was a witness at the justice committee, noted that they are not necessarily a panacea.

India is party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which prohibits torture and provides for a fair trial, but it has long stopped reporting on its performance.

It has signed but not ratified the Convention Against Torture, which has been grounds for countries like Denmark to refuse extradition in the past.

Canada has an obligation not extradite to places where there are substantial grounds to believe an individual will be tortured.

At the same time, as was noted in a 2019 paper by Joanna Harrington of the faculty of law at the University of Alberta, the Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed it remains the basic principle of extradition law that when a person is alleged to have committed a crime in another country, he or she should expect to be answerable to that country’s justice system.

Harrington noted that one way around this may be the temporary surrender of a Canadian national for trial, on condition that they would be returned to serve their sentence in Canada.

What is clearly required, if either side is interested in turning down the heat, is for the politicians to shut their pie holes and let the courts and diplomats take over. Specifically, the two countries have to find a way to make the extradition process work.

Verma proved himself the ideal diplomat when required, subtly conveying untruths on behalf of his country.

But his valedictory address to Canada on CTV sounded genuine.

“Canada had been a friend of India. Canada will remain a friend of India … We only want the Canadian regime of the day to understand my core concerns, and try to act on that sincerely, rather than being bedfellows with those who are trying to challenge Indian sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he said.

[email protected] Twitter.com/IvisonJ

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