A Liberal MP whose riding has been the scene of suspected Indian government operations has denounced a senior official who claimed Recent Delhi had ceased its foreign interference campaign against Canada.
Sukh Dhaliwal, whose Surrey-Newton constituency was shocked by India’s alleged 2023 assassination of a neighborhood temple president, said the official was out of step with the community and national security agencies.
“I strongly condemn these statements made by this official because he’s not in contact with the realities on the bottom,” the veteran MP told Global News in an interview at his riding office on Thursday.
“I’m coping with the community and the victims almost regularly. And this is completely irresponsible,” he said. “People across Canada, they’re all coming to me and telling me the identical thing, that this remains to be continuing.”
He said the official’s comments were at odds with Canada’s National Security Advisor, the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, which he said made no statements indicating that Indian efforts had stopped.
As recently because the last federal election, Dhaliwal said he believes he was himself targeted by Indian foreign interference. But he said victims are reluctant to talk out, because they fear for his or her families in India.
“It’s very hard for them to return out and publicly speak. And principally, they’re pressured, either diplomatically or forcibly,” said Dhaliwal, who was served within the riding south of Vancouver since 2015.
In a written statement, he called for an investigation into “the judgment and responsibilities exercised by the person who made these remarks,” saying his “conduct and suitability for his or her role should be reviewed.”
The dispute over whether Indian foreign interference efforts proceed erupted as Prime Minister Mark Carney was to reach in Mumbai on Friday. He’ll then meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Recent Delhi.
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On the eve of his visit, a senior government official said at a background briefing that India had halted the violence against opponents in Canada that prompted Ottawa to relax relations with Modi’s government.
The official, who spoke to reporters on the condition he wouldn’t be named, said, “We’re confident that that activity shouldn’t be continuing or we might not be having this sort of discussion.”
Pressed by reporters to make clear the comment, the senior official declined to elaborate, but said, “I actually don’t think we’d be taking this trip if we thought these type of activities would proceed.”
The statement marked the primary time Canada had claimed that Indian intelligence operations, which have been blamed for a minimum of one murder, thwarted plots to kill pro-Khalistan activists and extortions, had halted.
Neither the RCMP, CSIS nor the Prime Minister’s Office responded to requests for comment by deadline.
But coming as Carney is about to reach in India within the hope of securing a trade deal to offset the present U.S. tariff agenda, the official’s claim has been met with skepticism, particularly amongst Canada’s Sikhs.
The World Sikh Organization of Canada called the official’s comment’s “utterly false” and said they did “not align with what Sikh Canadians are experiencing on the bottom and what we’re seeing firsthand.”
Just last weekend, Vancouver police warned Canadian Sikh activist Moninder Singh about an imminent threat to himself, his wife and their children. It’s the fourth such warning he was received since 2022.
Writing on X, former CSIS analyst Jessica Davis said it seemed unlikely that India interference had stopped. “Either the federal government is naively believing India, or it’s misleading Canadians,” she wrote.
Canada’s national security agencies imagine India began a campaign in 2022 to kill activists in North America who support Khalistan, an independent state within the Sikh-majority Punjab region.
The primary victim was allegedly Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was shot dead outside the Surrey, B.C. temple where he served as president. The RCMP believes India had Lawrence Bishnoi organize the killing.
The FBI uncovered a similar plot to kill a Canadian pro-Khalistan activist in Recent York. The crime operative hired by an Indian intelligence official to perform the murder recently pleaded guilty.
Bishnoi and his one-time Canadian lieutenant Goldy Brar are also believed to be behind a minimum of a few of the extortions which have spread fear in Surrey and other cities with large South Asian populations.
RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme announced in October 2024 that India’s government had been linked to a broad array of violence, mostly targeting pro-Khalistan activists. Canada subsequently expelled six Indian diplomats.
But since taking office, Carney has restored, and deepened, ties with India, culminating in his first official visit to India this week.
Despite his concerns, Dhaliwal said he believed Carney and Foreign Minister Anita Anand would make national security a priority during their meetings with India’s leadership.
“They’ve assured us that, , in the case of a rule of law and Canadian lives, it takes priority they usually raised it previously and they’re going to raise it again,” he said.
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca
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