The Carney government needs to get its story straight on foreign interference and transnational repression — especially as it relates to India. 

After this government insisted that the Indian government was cooperating with the Canadian investigation into the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar and other crimes like extortion and arson, the Indian government said there was never anything to investigate in the first place. The Carney government remained silent, directly playing into the false narrative being pushed by India.

Then, prior to leaving for an international trip that included a stop in India, a Privy Council Office (PCO) official told journalists during a technical briefing that India was no longer committing any foreign interference or transnational repression, contradicting recent statements made by CSIS. Within days, the public safety minister, the foreign affairs minister and the prime minister all came out publicly to downplay the PCO official’s comments.

True to form under this government, this past week has only added more confusion. RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme went on CTV’s Question Period and told host Vassy Kapelos that the RCMP had no evidence of any clandestine activity related to foreign interference or transnational repression that can be linked back to a foreign country.

“I’m saying that based on the totality of the files that we have on foreign interference or transnational repression, what we have in our holdings is we have people that are intimidating people, harassing people — but connecting the dots to a foreign entity, regardless of the country, we don’t have that.”

So, it’s not just India that is no longer committing foreign interference or transnational repression, but all countries that have been known to conduct foreign interference or transnational repression – India, China, Russia, Iran – have apparently stopped their activities, according to the RCMP’s top cop.

Aside from the fact that the commissioner’s comments seem laughable on their face, transnational repression is, by definition, state-sponsored. If there is no state-linked activity, then the “transnational” part of the repression disappears, and it becomes run-of-the-mill criminal activity like extortion, intimidation or threats of violence. Surely, the commissioner of the RCMP knows this, so it’s rather curious why he would have phrased his answer to acknowledge the existence of files pertaining to transnational repression while saying there is no link to any foreign country.

But before we take the RCMP commissioner at his word and hang up a giant “mission accomplished” banner to mark the end of foreign interference and transnational repression in Canada, it’s worth noting that his words directly contradict the assessment that CSIS put out on March 1. In an emailed statement to the National Post, the spy agency confirmed that its threat assessment of the main perpetrators of “foreign interference and espionage against Canada” has not changed.

Additionally, Global News reporter Stewart Bell posted on social media on March 20 — after part of Duheme’s interview was teased out by CTV — that he had received a statement from CSIS confirming the agency’s threat assessment had not changed and that transnational repression and foreign interference remain persistent threats in Canada.  

That the RCMP and CSIS would have different assessments is not in and of itself surprising. Trying to build a criminal case that can be prosecuted in Canada is different from collecting intelligence and there are several challenges in presenting intelligence as evidence, which was discussed at length during the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference.

The final report discussed the challenges presented by the “intelligence-to-evidence” pipeline and recommended that the Government of Canada introduce legislation that could address this challenge before the next election. That never happened, which was bad enough, but now that we have the RCMP and CSIS on different sides of the issue of foreign interference and transnational repression, it makes matters much worse because Canadians are left wondering whom to believe while our adversaries will use the differing assessments to further their own narratives.

Canadians deserve to hear directly from their government — ideally, the prime minister himself — as to what is actually happening in Canada when it comes to foreign interference and transnational repression and what the current threat posed to diaspora communities looks like. As Canadians from Iran, China, India and elsewhere face real threats of violence, extortion, intimidation and harassment from state-linked proxies, they deserve to know what the current public safety risk to their communities is. 

In its most cynical interpretation, Canadians could reasonably conclude the RCMP is running cover for the government. While I don’t share this view, it’s hard to find fault with someone reaching that conclusion based on the events of the last few months, juxtaposed with what Duheme himself said back in October 2024, which was that multiple crimes including murder and extortion could be credibly linked back to agents of the government of India.

Normally, this would be the kind of issue the Conservative Party would want to jump on. It has the Conservative trifecta of claiming the Liberals are soft on crime, accusing the RCMP of overt political bias and then using their digital operations to target that message specifically to diaspora communities.

But the Conservative Party under leader Pierre Poilievre has been uncharacteristically muted when it comes to criticizing India for its alleged activities, including the murder of Nijjar and alleged interference in the last Conservative leadership race. Poilievre even seemed to take a page out of the Modi government talking points playbook to suggest that the allegations linking agents of the government of India to the murder of Nijjar were unfounded and former prime minister Justin Trudeau needed to “come clean” with Canadians about the evidence against India.

Given that there was no parade of government ministers to come forward to downplay the comments made by the RCMP commissioner as they did with the PCO official’s comments, it’s likely that the government is in “wishing this story goes away on its own” mode. All while the Official Opposition chooses to stay silent on this issue for reasons that seem more curious by the day.

The result? Canadians are left in the dark as to what the actual current threat to public safety is and have increasing reason to distrust the government and the RCMP’s assessment of the threat. 

It’s a recipe for success — for hostile state actors — while Canada loses.

© National Observer