The Indian government is warning all Indian nationals and students in Canada to “exercise utmost caution” in response to what it claims are “growing anti-India activities and politically-condoned hate crimes.”
“Recently, threats have particularly targeted Indian diplomats and sections of the Indian community who oppose the anti-India agenda. Indian nationals are therefore advised to avoid traveling to regions and potential venues in Canada that have seen such incidents,” read the statement.
“Given the deteriorating security environment in Canada, Indian students in particular are advised to exercise extreme caution and remain vigilant.”
The statement went on to ask Indian nationals and students living in Canada to register with the High Commission of India in the cities closest to them so that they can be better informed should they face “any emergency or untoward incident.”
“Registration would enable the High Commission and the Consulates General to better connect with Indian citizens in Canada in the event of any emergency or untoward incident,” the statement concluded.
The diplomatic row started when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of being involved in the assassination of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Nijjar was an outspoken Sikh separatist who promoted the idea of having a Sikh region separate from India, known as Khalistan. He was murdered outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, B.C. in June by two masked gunmen.
Trudeau announced that his government had intelligence that India’s government had involvement in the murder.
“Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty,” said Trudeau in the House of Commons on Monday. “In the strongest possible terms, I continue to urge the government of India to cooperate with Canada to get to the bottom of this matter,” Trudeau continued.
“Canada is a rule of law country. The protection of our citizens and defense of our sovereignty are fundamental.”
Justin Trudeau has pointed a finger at the Indian government, alleging its involvement in the June assassination of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C. While Canada-India relations are already on the rocks, this latest turn of events has further strained diplomatic ties between the two nations. Columnist and podcaster Rupa Subramanya joined True North’s Andrew Lawton to discuss whether relations between Canada and India could ever be repaired, and what it could mean for both countries.
India has rejected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s accusation that it was involved in the killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom is refusing to wade into the dispute.
Plus, the One Million March for Children takes place today – as parents across Canada protest gender ideology in schools.
And some more poor financial news for Canadians as Canada’s inflation rate reached 4% in August.
Tune into The Daily Brief with Cosmin Dzsurdzsa and Lindsay Shepherd!
Talk about being tone deaf about the trouble they’ve caused.
The “woke” school boards who’ve been highly complicit in the act of indoctrinating young kids about gender ideology have doubled down with their own hysterical missives warning about Wednesday’s peaceful 1 Million March 4 Children.
Toronto District School Board (TDSB) director Colleen Russell-Rawlins – together with her woke cabal of four (!) overpaid associate directors – ssued a statement to parents Tuesday labeling the demonstrators as those (from past history) who have fostered “inflammatory, transphobic and hateful behaviours” against the 2SLGBTQ+ community.
She indicated that ahead of the demonstrations (an inflammatory term itself) she wanted to make it “unequivocally clear” that the school board under her watch stands with their trans, Two-Spirit and non-binary students, staff and families.
“We support everyone’s human rights and expression of gender,” she wrote.
“Harassment, discrimination and hate have no place in TDSB… in our schools we do not tell students who they should be but welcome them as they are,” she added, citing the provisions of the Ontario Human Rights Code that protect everyone from discrimination and harassment.
It seems she doesn’t extend the same magnanimity to parents and their right to deal with their childrens’ gender dysphoria and to expect schools to teach the basics (not gender ideology), considering this is what Wednesday’s march is all about.
Here’s the kicker in her hysterical statement, however.
She claims that the news of the planned demonstrations is “upsetting” – so upsetting that staff and families “may require additional support.”
“TDSB’s social work department is ready to support where needed,” Russell-Rawlins and her cabal say.
She invites students and their families to reach out to their school principal or another staff member to speak about the demonstrations and/or “the impact of transphobia and homophobia” more broadly.
She says staff should speak with the board’s Employee and Family Assistance program – I’m presuming if they are troubled.
The icing on the cake comes at the end where she says that the TDSB will be raising the Pride flag at the Yonge St. Education Centre and administrative sites for the rest of the week.
Yes, that will show those “hateful” demonstrators!
So as the unionists made clear in their missives, it is hateful to have a different opinion.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read this absolute pap considering this is the same board that, according to administrators and teachers who recently spoke with me, operates under a “culture of terror” (in other words, hate) with Russell-Rawlins and her activist cabal at the helm.
Teachers also told me that in some schools curriculum has taken a back seat to perpetual DEI training and a myriad of cultural activities showcasing various diversity groups.
The latter, teachers have told me, occur almost daily in some schools and repeatedly take away from precious curriculum time.
A similar missive came out from the Peel District School Board (PDSB) suggesting that their school communities could be impacted (triggered) by the gathering of people and the display of “discriminatory and hateful language.”
It seems the woke boards are no better than the radical left unionists who’ve been in a contest to demonstrate who can be the most disingenuous and hysterical with their “No Space for Hate” campaign.
The most apoplectic has to be Fred Hahn, the openly queer leader of CUPE Ontario, who has made an absolute fool of himself on social media contending, among other things, that “there is so much, anger, misinformation and distrust being used to devide (sic) us.”
He doesn’t say who “us” is but I’d venture to guess it’s not the majority of gay people like myself who sympathize and agree with the parents marching.
I might add that he’s been so beside himself that his missives have been full of spelling errors. But getting back to the boards, like the unions, they too have proven with their hysteria why parents have a valid case.
Education directors like Russell-Rawlins just don’t get it that parents want their children to learn the basics so they can graduate literate in math and writing and ready to take on the world, not be indoctrinated by the pronoun set at the tender age of five.
I strongly agree that boards have no right whatsoever to keep a student’s gender dysphoria issues from their parents. As I’ve said many times before, teachers are not social workers or shrinks, nor do they have a right to decide whether a young student should transition.
They are setting themselves up for lawsuits, in my view.
The bottom line is that Ontario school boards – starting with the TDSB – have enjoyed far too much power and control over students and parents up to now.
This is not about protecting students in the slightest but maintaining that control.
I am thrilled that parents are finally speaking up.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has blasted the Liberal government’s meeting with executives from Canada’s five largest grocery chains to discuss the rising cost of food and how they can cooperate to “stabilize” food prices.
“The large grocery stores have accepted to work with the government of Canada. This is a step in the right direction,” said Industry Minister François-Phillipe Champagne to reporters, following the meeting. “We’ll keep on pushing them. Trust me, this is just the beginning.”
The grocery store chains include Loblaws, Sobeys, Metro, Walmart and Costco and all have agreed to “support” whatever measures are put in place to keep the cost of food affordable.
However, none of these chains, nor the Liberal government have yet provided any specific solutions on how this goal will be attained. Despite this, Champagne called the meeting a success after two hours of what he referred to as “difficult discussions.”
Opposition parties, including the Conservatives, don’t believe the Liberals’ claim that they will be able to make food prices affordable simply by leaning on grocery chains and have called the recent meeting a publicity stunt.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called the meeting nothing more than a “big photo op,” and referred to the Liberals’ climate change policies as the real root of high food prices.
On Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau threatened the grocery store chains, demanding that they stabilize their prices by Thanksgiving, saying that his government wouldn’t rule anything out, including “tax measures.”
Spokesperson for the Retail Council of Canada, Michelle Wasylyshen, said that these companies are “always ready to participate in good faith dialogue about the food industry.”
The Retail Council of Canada represents all five chains and Wasylyshen said she would be reaching out to food suppliers about the issue as well, saying that as much as 80% of checkout prices are costs coming directly from their grocery store’s suppliers.
“There was a lot of ground covered in today’s meeting and we are going to take the time necessary to review those discussions with our members before commenting further,” said Wasylyshen, according to the Toronto Star.
In response to the energy policies of the Liberal government, a new grassroots organization has formed to tell the other side of Canada’s energy story. Energy United campaign manager Jarret Coels joined True North’s Andrew Lawton to discuss the pressing issues facing the energy sector, and their impact on Canadians.
Three months after his killing outside of a Surrey, B.C., gurdwara, Hardeep Singh Nijjar has become the face of the simmering diplomatic fight between Canada and India.
On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rose in the House of Commons stating that Canadian security agencies have been “actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar.”
Following Trudeau’s accusation that the Indian government was involved in the extrajudicial assassination of a Canadian citizen, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly announced that Canada had expelled the head of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) in Canada – India’s foreign intelligence agency.
Overnight, India responded in the diplomatic tit-for-tat by expelling a senior Canadian diplomat. A statement from the Indian External Affairs Minister says Trudeau’s allegations are “absurd” and “motivated.”
Who was Hardeep Singh Nijjar?
India alleges that Nijjar was the leader of the Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF), a militant Sikh extremist organization that was designated as a terrorist group by the Indian government in February of 2023.
The KTF advocates for a breakaway Sikh ethnostate in the Indian province of Punjab known as Khalistan. According to India’s terror group declaration for the KTF, the “group promotes various acts of terrorism, including targeted killings in Punjab.”
Canada lists two Khalistani groups as terror organizations, Babar Khalsa International (BKI) – the group responsible for the Air India bombings – and the International Sikh Youth Federation. The Khalistan Tiger Force is not a listed terror group by the Canadian government.
On the evening of June 18, Nijjar was shot and killed in his car as he was leaving the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara where he serves as president.
According to a Global News profile, Nijjar came to Canada in 1997 seeking refugee status using a fake passport that identified him as “Ravi Sharma.”
Nijjar’s application, which was eventually rejected by the Canadian government because of a fake physician letter filled with spelling errors, stated that he was facing persecution in India for being part of a “social group” with “individuals associated with Sikh militants.”
He wrote to Immigration officials that he had been arrested in 1995 and tortured by Indian police.
Canadian officials didn’t believe his story and found Nijjar to be “unreliable and untrustworthy.” They didn’t believe he had ever been arrested or tortured by Indian officials.
Eleven days after his rejected refugee claim, Nijjar married a B.C. woman who sponsored his citizenship application. In 1997, that same woman became a Canadian citizen after she was sponsored to enter Canada by a different husband.
On his citizenship application he was asked if he had ever been part of a group that advocated “armed struggle or violence to reach political, religious or social objectives.” Nijjar responded, “No.”
Immigration officials rejected Nijjar for a second time, stating that they believed his new marriage was “a marriage of convenience.”
Nijjar appealed the decision in 2001, but was rejected for a third time.
In 2013 Nijjar traveled to the United Nations Human Rights Council to lobby the organization to recognize anti-Sikh violence in India as a genocide. Later, he travelled to the United Nations headquarters in New York to lobby for a referendum over the independence of the Punjab state of India from the rest of the country.
In 2014, India issued a warrant for Nijjar’s arrest on Interpol, describing him as “mastermind of the Khalistan Tiger Force.”
A summary of the warrant connected him to a 2007 bombing of the Shingar Cinema in Punjab. The suspects in the case said they were “acting under the instruction of Nijjar.”
A second Interpol notice in 2016 reaffirmed the Indian government’s belief that Nijjar was behind multiple acts of terrorism in India. According to the notice, he was wanted for committing acts of terrorism and faced a possible life sentence.
Nijjar denied the “baseless and fabricated” allegations against him by the Indian government in a personal letter to Justin Trudeau.
At the time of his death, Nijjar’s citizenship status was unknown to the public due to privacy laws that protect individual cases from being reported in the press
In response to growing public speculation over Nijjar’s true citizenship status before he died, Immigration Minister Marc Miller confirmed on social media that Nijjar was granted Canadian citizenship on March 3, 2015.
I can confirm that Hardeep Singh Nijjar became a Canadian citizen on March 3, 2015. I hope this dispels the baseless rumours that he was not a Canadian. #cdnpoli
True North reached out to Chris Alexander, the Conservative immigration minister at the time of Nijjar’s citizenship approval, for comment on the decision to approve Nijjar, but did not receive a reply by the time of publication.
True North also asked both Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and Global Affairs Canada for further information regarding Nijjar’s citizenship status and attempts to become a citizen after 2001, but received no response.
In 2018, Nijjar took over the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, B.C., becoming its president.
After a stayed assault charge in a Surrey provincial court in 2019, Nijjar found himself in a dispute over a printing press with Ripudaman Singh Malik, a man acquitted of involvement in the 1985 Air India Bombing – the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history.
After Malik lent the press to Nijjar in 2020, Nijjar refused to return it, as is reported in court records on the matter.
Malik was murdered in July 2022.
According to fellow Khalistan activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun of Sikhs for Justice, Nijjar was organizing a ‘Khalistan referendum’ in Surrey scheduled for September. Pannun was designated as a terrorist by the Indian government in 2020.
Trudeau’s accusation against the Indian government is the latest volley in a long-running diplomatic fight between Ottawa and New Delhi.
Relations between India and Canada have been collapsing ever since Trudeau visited India on a state visit in 2018 with his family. After being snubbed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi upon arrival in the country, a member of the Canadian delegation invited, Jaspal Atwal, who had been convicted for the attempted murder of a former cabinet minister, to a reception with senior members of the Indian government.
After Nijjar’s death, Khalistani separatists hung up posters around the country calling to “Kill India.” The posters also had the names and faces of senior Indian diplomats working in Canada under the title “killers.”
When asked by Canadian journalists if Canada condemns the posters depicting Indian diplomats as “killers,” Trudeau refused and said that Canada believes in the right to peaceful protest and freedom of expression.
At the G20 summit in New Delhi two weeks ago, the frosty relationship between Modi and Trudeau took centre stage. According to competing statements issued by both governments, Trudeau raised international interference and the protection of Canadian sovereignty with Modi, whereas the Indian statement states that Modi raised the growing “anti-Indian activities” taking place in Canada.
Before the two leaders met in New Delhi for the summit, Canada abruptly ended negotiations with India over a new trade deal.
The United Kingdom government is treading carefully when it comes to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s explosive allegation that the Indian government was involved in the killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
According to a spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Britain will still move forward with trade talks with India despite the accusation.
“Work on the trade negotiations will continue as before,” the spokesperson said Tuesday.
“When we have concerns about countries we are negotiating trade deals with, we will raise them directly with the government concerned. But with regards to the current negotiations with India, these are negotiations about a trade deal, and we’re not looking to conflate them with other issues.”
WATCH: The UK is refusing to wade into Canada's fight with India over the alleged killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
In the House of Commons today, Britain's deputy speaker said there's "no indication" UK ministers will make any statements on PM Justin Trudeau's allegations. pic.twitter.com/XSLXwvL72X
Canada has since expelled a senior diplomat from the country after the Liberal government alleged Pavan Kumar Rai was a point man in the alleged assassination. The Indian government responded by expelling a Canadian diplomat.
Labour MP Khalid Mahmood raised a point of order in the UK House of Commons earlier in the afternoon, calling on the UK government to issue a statement on the matter.
“I urge our government to warn their Indian counterparts that such state terrorism will not be allowed to impact government-to-government relations. As the House is due to rise, may I ask the government, through your offices, to make an urgent statement on this important issue, to assure Sikhs in the UK of the government’s intentions?” said Mahmood.
In response, the UK’s deputy speaker of the House of Commons responded by saying that there was “no indication” any further official statements will be made by the UK government.
“I have received no indication that any minister intends to make a statement—or statements further to those we have just had today—but if that changes, Members will be notified in the usual way,” said the deputy speaker.
Yesterday, Trudeau declared in the Canadian House of Commons that agents acting on behalf of the Indian government were behind Nijjar’s death after he was shot in Surrey, BC earlier this year.
“Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar,” claimed Trudeau.
Increased gasoline prices have brought Canada’s inflation rate up to an annual pace of 4%, according to a Consumer Price Index report published by Statistics Canada on Tuesday.
The basis for the annual rate rose by 0.7% as a direct result of rising fuel costs. Last month, gas prices shot up by 4.6% and have risen by 0.8% compared to the same time period from last year.
Increased costs to fuel prices have a rippling effect on the prices of almost all other goods as it increases their cost of production and transportation.
The cost of shelter increased by 6% from January to August, going up from 5.1% in July. The cost of rent increased on average by 6.5% across Canada.
The interest costs on mortgages also rose again by another 2.7%, making for a total increase of 30.9% since the beginning of the year.
Fortunately, the cost of food has decreased from 11% last year to 6.9% in 2023. Last month the price of food went down by 0.4% from July.
“I do think that the rate of inflation for groceries will continue to decelerate,” said CIBC executive director of economics Andrew Grantham, according to CTV News.
“(But) if you’re the average Canadian, average household, you don’t want prices to just stop rising, you want them to kind of come down a little bit from these very high levels. I’m not sure that’s going to happen anytime soon, unfortunately.”
High prices at the grocery store have been a serious problem for Canadian families with many being forced to spend a large portion of their earnings on food or rely on food banks, which are already understocked.
On Monday, Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne met with executives from some of Canada’s biggest grocers to discuss what can be done to stabilize food costs. Champagne said the grocers have agreed to work alongside the federal government to ensure stability with food pricing, however he provided few details on how said stabilization would be implemented.
“What is the most concerning is that (inflation) accelerated more than (expected) and that we also saw some core measures of inflation that the Bank of Canada track, accelerate as well,” said Grantham.
Grantham said that because inflation in the third quarter is now on track to be higher than what the Bank of Canada had initially forecasted in July, there is a chance that the central bank will have to raise interest rates again when they make their next decision on Oct. 25.
“This is a very difficult decision,” said Grantham. “Our view at the moment is that they’re going to place weight on the weakening of the economy,”
Bank of Montreal economist Doug Porter said he believes that the unexpected increase in overall inflation will likely affect the recent pause on rate hikes by the Bank of Canada.
“Things just got a lot more interesting for the Bank of Canada, and most definitely not in a good way,” said Porter.
The reason for last week’s chilly reception to Justin Trudeau in India has been made clearer as Trudeau levelled an accusation that the Indian government was involved in the June killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C. India has rejected the accusation outright, and Canada and India have each expelled one of the other’s senior diplomats. True North’s Andrew Lawton discusses with columnist and podcaster Rupa Subramanya.
Also, the federal government’s amnesty period for the guns it banned in May 2020 is set to expire next month, and there is still no “buyback” in place for gun owners to unload their soon-to-be-illegal firearms. Rod Giltaca of the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights joins to weigh in.
