India Canada relations plunged to their lowest point today with the decision to expel six Canadian diplomats including Acting High Commissioner Stewart Wheeler, Deputy High Commissioner Patrick Herbert, and four first secretaries: Marie Jolly, Ian David Trites, Adam Chuipka and Paula Orjuela.
They have until Oct 19 to pack their bags.
In what is seen as a tit for tat move, Canada also expelled six Indian diplomats after police claimed they had evidence that they were part of an Indian government “campaign of violence”.
Earlier, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) announced it is withdrawing High Commissioner Sanjay Verma and other targeted “diplomats and officials”.
The MEA said the “baseless targeting of the Indian High Commissioner and other diplomats and officials was completely unacceptable. It was underlined that in an atmosphere of extremism and violence, the Trudeau government’s actions endangered their safety.”
The sting was reserved for the next paragraph: “We have no faith in the current Canadian government’s commitment to ensure their safety. Therefore, Government of India has decided to withdraw the High Commissioner and other targeted diplomats and officials.”
Earlier, Stewart Wheeler was summoned to the ministry and read the riot act over a 20-minute meeting.
Wheeler said “Canada has done what India has long been asking for. Canada has provided credible, irrefutable evidence of ties between agents of the Government of India and murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil.”
“Now it’s up to India to live up to what it said it would and look into those allegations. It is in the interest of both our countries and the people of both our countries to get to the bottom of this. Canada stands ready to cooperate.”
The trigger for these developments was Canada saying the India’s High Commissioner was a “Person of Interest” in a murder investigation, presumably the killing of Khalistani activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June last year.
The MEA dismissed the accusation as preposterous, accusing the Trudeau government of playing what it called “vote bank politics”, meaning courting the Canadian Sikh community with elections due next year.
The MEA also said the Trudeau government was trying to deflect attention from a commission probing foreign interference in Canada’s domestic affairs.
