[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[viper37]

Joyeuse Action de grâce.

Toi aussi.

Happy Thanksviging everyone

[Josephus]

No comments on the India thing?  The New York Times is talking about it on the front page, so it must be big.

Had I not watched the news tonight, I don't think I'd know about it.  La Presse automated system does not seem to think it's a big deal as it's nowhere near he front page right now.

Toronto Star had it front page, top of the fold. This is a big story. Basically Canada saying that Indian government reps in Canada killing, or helping to kill, Canadians.

[Barrister]

No comments on the India thing?  The New York Times is talking about it on the front page, so it must be big.

Had I not watched the news tonight, I don't think I'd know about it.  La Presse automated system does not seem to think it's a big deal as it's nowhere near he front page right now.

Toronto Star had it front page, top of the fold. This is a big story. Basically Canada saying that Indian government reps in Canada killing, or helping to kill, Canadians.

It's so complicated.

So at a very base level, Canada has as a matter of law and custom established the principle that a region of Canada can separate from Canada - it's just a matter of process.  Indian, on the other hand, has established the indivisibility of India right into it's constitution, and advocating for the separatism of any region of India is a criminal offence in and of itself.

Now perhaps India is justified in that position - it's an incredibly diverse nation, with a multitude of languages, and a history of multiple independent states.  I don't want to get into this point.

So at the basic level - someone who advocates for an independent Khalistan (an independent Sikh state) is just advocating traditional Canadian values, whereas in India they're a criminal.

So there are absolutely some crass and naked political points being put forward by Canada.  By harbouring Sikh separatists the government of the day is scoring points in Quebec (see?  we don't hate separatists) but also our very large Sikh diaspora (about 2% of our total population is Sikh).

Plus - it's not like there isn't a history of actual Sikh terrorism involving Canada.  We seem to turn a bit of a blind eye to it these days as long as it doesn't involve actions in Canada.

But on the other hand - government-sanctioned murder of citizens (more on this) within foreign nations?  That's pretty high-level evil shit.  That's what Putin does (or the Saudis).

What about those targeted - as far as I can tell they're almost invariably present or former Indian citizens.  The media will get all offended at the murder of, say, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, calling it the "murder of a Canadian" - whereas it's a bit more nuanced.  Nijjar was formerly an Indian citizen, who had to give up his Indian citizenship as a matter of Indian law when he adopted Canadian citizenship.

So this is where I'm nuanced.  If, say, Timothy McVeigh was alive and plotting terrorist attacks on the US from foreign soil I wouldn't really have much issue with the US attempting to murder him.  Hell - the US did in fact plot the murder of non-US_citizen Osama Bin Laden on foreign soil (well technically they kidnapped him from Pakistan then killed him over international waters).  I'd have zero issue with either.

But so what's the difference between those cases, and the Saudis murdering Jamal Kashogi?  Kashogi was anti-regime, but never that I'm aware of engaged in any violent or terrorist activities.  He was just a journalist opposed to the House of Saud.

So let's go back to the first point - and this is where I just don't know.  Are the people being targeted by the Indian government in fact violent sikh terrorists, and Canada is refusing otherwise lawful extradition requests (or at least deemed unlikely to grant extradition by India with good reason)?

Or are the merely political opponents of the Indian government?

I just don't know.

I would tend to sympathize with the Canadian government on this point, and be highly skeptical of the Modi government.  But because of the political factors in Canada I'm not in complete certainty.

[Sheilbh]

On the Saudi/Russia comparison - that's not quite the one being made in the Indian press from my understanding.

From what I've heard there it is portrayed as India finally becoming a serious power because (unlike Saudi and Russia) it can act with relative impunity. The comparison being made is with the US or Israel. Right or wrong it is a stage on India becoming a world power like Western world powers, not a pariah of some sort.

And I think looking at the response of Canada's allies that's possibly not wrong.

On your conclusion though I agree. I think the Canadian government's point is right. However I do acknowledge that, from what I understand, India is genuinely targeting people with ties to terrorist organisations - I've heard even very moderate, secularist, anti-Modi Indian reporters push back quite strongly on it being about peaceful political activism. (I can't help but think of, say, Turkey and Kurdish groups in Scandinavia.)

[Admiral Yi]

If they are terrorists, the right way to do it is request extradition.

[crazy canuck]

Here is Coyne's view in his piece in the Globe

Gifted link and I copied the text below

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/519974dc5e28f762a87fb14c1570523f4fb873adfcfcb945043907ccc3c41650/4YACLDUWOZHZNCWNKJCNT7G774/

To dispense with the obvious: No, Monday's extraordinary statement by the RCMP – that agents of the government of India, including the High Commissioner to Canada, have engaged in a far-reaching program of intimidation, extortion and murder of its opponents in this country – was not a ploy to distract attention from Justin Trudeau's political troubles.

The Prime Minister may have been too willing to play politics with other cases of foreign interference; the RCMP may have been too cozy on occasion with prime ministers current and past; but that is a far cry from publicly accusing a major world power of murdering and terrorizing Canadian citizens on Canadian soil. The timing may be to the Prime Minister's advantage, but whatever one thinks him capable of it defies belief that the RCMP Commissioner would play along.

To dispense with the somewhat less obvious: No, the government of Canada, presented with "clear and compelling" evidence that the government of India has been running what amounts to an organized crime operation out of the High Commission, was not obliged to keep quiet about it, for the sake of preserving "the relationship."

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The notion that this is just a "diplomatic spat," or that Canada and not India is responsible for the "escalation of tensions" – as if the fault were not India's, for having carried out this unprovoked attack on a supposed ally, but Canada's for objecting – is one of the grimmer jokes to emerge from this affair.

Leave aside the question of what the Trudeau government should or should not have done in response. What "relationship" can there be with a government that murders our citizens? Those who counsel timidity in the name of pragmatism, keeping up appearances even as the hit squads are roaming about the countryside, are fooling themselves. If Canada cannot at the very least stand up and call this out we are only inviting more such contemptuous treatment.

Have governments in Canada been too slow to act against Sikh extremists? Have politicians of all parties, but especially Liberals, been too eager to court the votes of Sikh nationalists, sometimes seeming even to endorse the actions of Sikh terrorists, if only by their silence? Yes and yes. That does not begin to justify the actions of the Indian government.

Let us have no pretense, please, that there is still some question about its involvement. We are not in a court of law. No one's liberty is at stake. And nothing in the behaviour of the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi entitles it to the benefit of the doubt.

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The government of Canada gave it every opportunity to participate in the investigation. It refused. The Modi government instead demanded that Canada present it with evidence of its agents' complicity. It was presented with such evidence, and still refused. Are we then to suppose that the High Commissioner oversaw this scheme entirely on his own initiative, without his superiors at least knowing about it? Come on.

This is not, to say the least, the behaviour of an ally. Neither is it the behaviour of a democracy, in any meaningful sense. Part of what makes democratic government possible is respect for the rule of law: that is what ensures the government remains, in Churchill's phrase, the servant of the people and not the master. The Modi government may still be constrained, just, by the institutions and procedures of Indian democracy. But its own actions, at home and abroad, reveal an alarming taste for autocracy, as this latest episode attests.

The geopolitical argument, then – that Canada, and the other democracies, should put up with the odd bit of state terrorism on India's part in hopes of preserving it as a counterweight against China – is fraught, not only morally but strategically. Even if we were to pay the Modi government this sort of implicit ransom, it is far from clear it will win us any favours. Ultimately, India is on India's side.

Sooner or later it will dawn on Canadians that we are living in a very dangerous world, for which we are distinctly ill-prepared. We have been sustained for too long in the illusion that we have no natural predators, neither enemies who wish us ill, nor bullies who don't much care about us one way or the other but don't mind pushing us about, either, in pursuit of their objectives.

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How much current and past governments may have contributed to this is well worth investigating, as for example in the public inquiry now being led by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue. What should be done about it now is equally worth debating. But the first step is simply opening our eyes.

[Sheilbh]

If they are terrorists, the right way to do it is request extradition.

That assumes both sides see them as terrorists, respect each other's judicial processes, have extradition treaties and are willing to extradite. Again see the Scandinavians and the PKK. I imagine a UK request to the US to extradite an IRA fundraiser would not be met positively (but obviously we can't piss off the US so wouldn't do anything about it).

Obviously not Canada,  but for a very long time the UK had a very relaxed attitude to extremist Islamists organising in the UK as long as they weren't targeting us. They may have been absolutely implicated in terrorist attacks in, say, Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan but as long as they weren't engaged in terrorism here we were kind of okay with it. That only really changed after 9/11 (and was the original meaning of Londonistan) - the most famous example was a Jordanian and because of ECHR/human rights issues it took about 20 years and a specific, standalone treaty with Jordan before we could extradite him.

And arguably that was just history repeating itself - various Latin American revolutionaries or Garibaldi etc all lived in London making their wild ambitious, impossible and, ultimately, successful plans of revolutionary change. Lenin and the rest were having their debates in Zurich and were absolutely threats to the Tsarist regime, Khomeini in Paris. Marx and numerous ideologues of anarchism also lived in London and developed their world changing ideas. I'm not sure any of that is necessarily from, say, modern Western cities incubating Islamist or nationalist revolutionary violence. We just don't know which ones will work yet.

[Barrister]

If they are terrorists, the right way to do it is request extradition.

That assumes both sides see them as terrorists, respect each other's judicial processes, have extradition treaties and are willing to extradite. Again see the Scandinavians and the PKK. I imagine a UK request to the US to extradite an IRA fundraiser would not be met positively (but obviously we can't piss off the US so wouldn't do anything about it).

Obviously not Canada,  but for a very long time the UK had a very relaxed attitude to extremist Islamists organising in the UK as long as they weren't targeting us. They may have been absolutely implicated in terrorist attacks in, say, Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan but as long as they weren't engaged in terrorism here we were kind of okay with it. That only really changed after 9/11 (and was the original meaning of Londonistan) - the most famous example was a Jordanian and because of ECHR/human rights issues it took about 20 years and a specific, standalone treaty with Jordan before we could extradite him.

And arguably that was just history repeating itself - various Latin American revolutionaries or Garibaldi etc all lived in London making their wild ambitious, impossible and, ultimately, successful plans of revolutionary change. Lenin and the rest were having their debates in Zurich and were absolutely threats to the Tsarist regime, Khomeini in Paris. Marx and numerous ideologues of anarchism also lived in London and developed their world changing ideas. I'm not sure any of that is necessarily from, say, modern Western cities incubating Islamist or nationalist revolutionary violence. We just don't know which ones will work yet.

So at the outset - I have no personal experience in extradition cases, so I'm going more off popular knowledge and not any professional expertise.

Lets take the example of Nijjar, who I understand was subject to an extradition request.  As I understand it, he was someone who was subject to an extradition request from India.  I have no idea how far along that process was.  Generally speaking though it takes quite a bit of time, and there are multiple ways to fight extradition.  For example Nijjar's lawyers could argue that India didn't have sufficient evidence, or that what Nijjar was charged with wouldn't constitute a crime under Canadian law, or that Nijjar wouldn't face a fair trial.  Canada could also ask for a guarantee that Nijjar wouldn't face the death penalty if extradited.

One could imagine a situation where Nijjar's extra-judicial murder in Canada by Indian authorities might be somehow morally justified.  Perhaps they felt he was an imminent threat and was plotting some terrible act of terrorism.  Or perhaps they felt he just had so much blood on his hands, and were convinced that Canada would never extradite, that his murder was justified.  This was after all the same justification the US used to kill Bin Laden, who was residing in Pakistan, a country the US is nominally friends with.

But I'm mostly just playing the devil's advocate here.  The above is giving India every benefit of the doubt, where I don't really think they've earned it.  The justification you mentioned before seems much more likely - India views itself as a "Great Power" and will not be constrained by international norms in pursuing what it sees as its national interest.

Nijjar was 100% tied to pro-Khalistan groups, spoke that violence may be necessary, so that probably was enough for India/Modi to order his murder.

And remember - for whatever reason the Indian-Canadian population of Canada is overwhelmingly Punjabi.  It's hard to get exact statistics, but in terms of languages 1.1 million Canadians know Hindi, while 942k speak Punjabi - but the overwhelming number of Punjabi speakers also know Hindi.  So just by itself that makes Canada-India relations somewhat tricky.  (and for similar reasons, Canada-France relations).

So I agree - the way it ought to be handled is through extradition.  We really shouldn't further normalize the idea of government agents running around killing people discretely in foreign nations.  If you squint you can sort-of understand why "terrorism" gets viewed differently - but one man's terrorist is another man's freedom-fighter.

[crazy canuck]

The thing you are all missing is the people who are implicated have diplomatic immunity.  That is why they were expelled and not immediately arrested and prosecuted.

[Admiral Yi]

That assumes both sides see them as terrorists <snip>

It just assumes that assassinating a person in another country is not allowed.

[viper37]

So there are absolutely some crass and naked political points being put forward by Canada.  By harbouring Sikh separatists the government of the day is scoring points in Quebec (see?  we don't hate separatists) but also our very large Sikh diaspora (about 2% of our total population is Sikh). 

Ah, no?  I'm sorry, but this is an English Canadian fantasy.  It might score points with some Ontarians or Maritimers, maybe even some English Montrealers who were on the fence of switching Conservative this time around, but it won't change the mind of Quebecers.

Those who were voting Liberal were gonna vote Liberal.  Those who did not like the party won't like it anymore.



Anyway.  I came here to post this.
Trudeau pulls a rabbit out of his hat:


Trudeau tells inquiry some Conservative parliamentarians are involved in foreign interference

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he has the names of Conservative parliamentarians who are involved in foreign interference.

In explosive testimony before the foreign interference inquiry today, Trudeau said he instructed the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to warn Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and protect the party's integrity.

"I have the names of a number of parliamentarians, former parliamentarians and/or candidates in the Conservative Party of Canada who are engaged, or at high risk of, or for whom there is clear intelligence around foreign interference," he said.

"And I have directed CSIS and others to try and inform the Conservative Party leader to be warned and armed, to be able to make decisions that protect the integrity of that party, of its members, from activities around foreign interference."

The term "parliamentarian" can refer to senators or members of the House of Commons.

[...]



I wonder if Poilièvre himself is implicated.

[Grey Fox]

So there are absolutely some crass and naked political points being put forward by Canada.  By harbouring Sikh separatists the government of the day is scoring points in Quebec (see?  we don't hate separatists) but also our very large Sikh diaspora (about 2% of our total population is Sikh).

Ah, no?  I'm sorry, but this is an English Canadian fantasy.  It might score points with some Ontarians or Maritimers, maybe even some English Montrealers who were on the fence of switching Conservative this time around, but it won't change the mind of Quebecers.

Those who were voting Liberal were gonna vote Liberal.  Those who did not like the party won't like it anymore.



Anyway.  I came here to post this.
Trudeau pulls a rabbit out of his hat:


Trudeau tells inquiry some Conservative parliamentarians are involved in foreign interference

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he has the names of Conservative parliamentarians who are involved in foreign interference.

In explosive testimony before the foreign interference inquiry today, Trudeau said he instructed the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to warn Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and protect the party's integrity.

"I have the names of a number of parliamentarians, former parliamentarians and/or candidates in the Conservative Party of Canada who are engaged, or at high risk of, or for whom there is clear intelligence around foreign interference," he said.

"And I have directed CSIS and others to try and inform the Conservative Party leader to be warned and armed, to be able to make decisions that protect the integrity of that party, of its members, from activities around foreign interference."

The term "parliamentarian" can refer to senators or members of the House of Commons.

[...]



I wonder if Poilièvre himself is implicated.

Of course he is that's why he doesn't ask for a secret clearance. He won't get it.

[Sheilbh]

It just assumes that assassinating a person in another country is not allowed.

Sure - which is why it's being viewed in India as them reaching the point in power that like the US or Israel they can do things that aren't allowed without consequences.

But I'm mostly just playing the devil's advocate here.  The above is giving India every benefit of the doubt, where I don't really think they've earned it.  The justification you mentioned before seems much more likely - India views itself as a "Great Power" and will not be constrained by international norms in pursuing what it sees as its national interest.
[...]
So I agree - the way it ought to be handled is through extradition.  We really shouldn't further normalize the idea of government agents running around killing people discretely in foreign nations.  If you squint you can sort-of understand why "terrorism" gets viewed differently - but one man's terrorist is another man's freedom-fighter.

Yeah I totally agree. I think the thing I found interesting with the Indian commentary I saw was that they were pretty blatant that this was breaching all sorts of "international law". But they're view was that made them like the US and Israel in being able to flout international law (and also possibly tied a bit to the generally kind of weird love for Israel, especially Netanyahu on the Indian right).

I think that perspective both of law but also who gets to act with impunity was interesting. I think it's part of the challenge the West has more generally in convincing the global south to care about, say, Ukraine or international law/the "international rules based order".

[crazy canuck]

I think that perspective both of law but also who gets to act with impunity was interesting. I think it's part of the challenge the West has more generally in convincing the global south to care about, say, Ukraine or international law/the "international rules based order".

And not just the challenge of the West in relation to the global south but a challenge within the West itself. The Rule of Law is breaking down everywhere it seems.

[Grey Fox]

Yes, we've let capitalism replace our empire building ethos. Now we face the consequences.