First China, now India! For Ottawa, this is starting to look like a pattern rather than bad luck. Washington can easily get Canada in serious trouble, but it won’t offer much help.
Last time, what looked like a routine arrest-and-extradition request from the United States for Huawei’s No 2 turned into the worst diplomatic crisis between Canada and China. Now, it’s facing another crisis of comparable magnitude with India. The latest spat with New Delhi saw Ottawa expel six Indian diplomats this week, including its high commissioner. India retaliated by kicking out six Canadian diplomats.
It all came to a head following a year-long investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) – the Canadian equivalent of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Ottawa now accuses Indian diplomats in Canada of being involved with gangs that have allegedly committed murders, criminal intimidation, harassment and extortion against Sikh communities in the country.
This follows last year’s accusation made by the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau that “agents of the government of India” were implicated in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh community leader in British Columbia. New Delhi had labelled him a “terrorist” who was involved in a subversive movement that is trying to carve out an independent nation in northern India.
Back then, New Delhi responded by asking Canada to reduce its diplomatic presence in the country, resulting in the withdrawal of more than 40 members of the Canadian diplomatic corps. Sikhs account for more than 2 per cent of the total Canadian population, the largest community outside India, and form one of the largest ethnic voting blocs for the Liberal Party.
For a long time, Canada acted like it could usually rely on big brother Washington’s support. That calculus has fundamentally changed, at least since Donald Trump was last in the White House. Yet, the country’s leaders have proved woefully ill-suited to adapt to the new reality.
Washington could have a good reason to support Canada but for the broader geopolitical picture. Nijjar’s murder might not have been a one-off. Shortly after his death last year, an Indian national was arrested in the Czech Republic and extradited to the US for allegedly trying to hire a hitman to assassinate, in New York City, another Sikh community leader and long-time Nijjar associate.
But unlike Trudeau, the White House of Joe Biden has consistently kept separate the ongoing criminal case by US law enforcement, and US diplomacy with India, which has been accorded the highest priority. It pulled out all the stops during the state visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year, which included an address to a joint session of the US Congress.
The US and its Anglo-American allies want India on their side as a counterweight against China in the Indo-Pacific. So they have all tried to overlook Ottawa’s sensational accusations beyond offering token support.
Their response, or rather the lack of one, may have been disappointing, but completely predictable.
With China, the flimsiest evidence or just a hint of foreign influence in Canada has been enough to trigger a very tough voicing of support from Washington. With India, though, it’s all hush-hush.
Probably the year-long, behind-the-scenes negotiations between Ottawa and New Delhi have not yielded results. That was likely why Trudeau and his rather weak foreign affairs minister Melanie Joly felt compelled to make public the latest sensational accusations against the Indian diplomats.
But Modi and his external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar are famous for playing hard ball. Both men know Ottawa will not get any real support from Washington or its other English-speaking allies.
With the Conservatives expected to win big in the next general election in about a year, they are also happy to sit on the fence to watch Trudeau and the Liberals squirm.
But whoever is in government, it’s time Canada learns that playing by the rules, all by yourself, doesn’t pay.
