Nothing happens on Thanksgiving, right?
Wrong.
In the midst of holiday festivities on October 14, the RCMP Commissioner, Michael Duheme, and Assistant Commissioner Brigitte Gauvin, held a press conference to put the Mounties’ cards (some of them) on the table about what its investigations had learned to date about Indian government interference in Canada.
These investigations, we learned, were the product of a multi-disciplinary team that the Mounties had formed back in February 2024. Despite its work, the RCMP had found that the threat had continued to rise. This required the RCMP to issue a dozen ‘duty to warn’ notices to Canadians (since September 2023) who were in danger.
The RCMP Commissioner set out four issues of grave concern for the RCMP.
The presence of a violent extremist threat in Canada
The involvement of Indian government officials in national security threat activity
The proxy use of organized crime groups
Broader foreign interference activities by the Government of India.
You can find the RCMP press conference here:
This is pretty stunning news from the RCMP. Taking the extraordinary step of the releasing information while a law enforcement investigation is ongoing was clearly designed to deter further criminal action, provide a broader notice to the South Asian community about threats, and counter an official Indian government narrative.
It was also in response, we learned, to a previously undisclosed meeting held in Singapore on October 12, immediately following the ASEAN summit. Three senior Canadian officials: the RCMP Deputy Commissioner for Federal Policing/National Security, Mark Fynn; the National Security and Intelligence Adviser to the PM, Nathalie Drouin; and the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, David Morrison, met with Indian counterparts to present Canadian evidence about the India government’s involvement in interference in Canada. The meeting did not go well and failed to budge the Indian government from its official position of see and hear no evil.
That official Indian narrative is an attempt by the Modi government to sustain the tattered remnants of plausible deniability surrounding its involvement in an extrajudicial killing on Canadian soil and the reach of its foreign interference activities. It has responded to the most recent allegations and the expulsion of its diplomats from Canada by spluttering and trying to place the blame on Canadian domestic politics. Here goes: “The Government of India strongly rejects these preposterous imputations and ascribes them to the political agenda of the Trudeau Government that is centered around vote bank politics.”
During the Q and A at the RCMP press conference some more details about the extent of RCMP investigations and charges were revealed. Not only was it confirmed that 8 individuals had been charged with murder (in the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar), but that a further 22 charges of extortion had been laid, some with connection to Indian government officials. The Bishnoi gang was named as one proxy engaged in these activities.
The RCMP Commissioner noted that the request to lift diplomatic immunity provisions under the Vienna Convention from Indian diplomats in Canada so that they could be interviewed by law enforcement was refused by the Indian government. No real surprise there.
The press conference wasn’t the only high-stakes action in town. It took place, no coincidence, in the midst of a high-profile round of diplomatic expulsions of Indian diplomats from Canada. The Foreign Affairs Minister announced the expulsions of six Indian diplomats, including, notably, the Indian High Commissioner to Canada, in this press release:
The Indian government immediately responded by expelling an equal number of Canadian diplomats from New Delhi. Tit-for-tat. Out goes their High Commissioner; out goes our charge d’affaires, Stewart Wheeler.
The RCMP press conference was stick and carrot. Not only did it present a severe indictment against the Indian government, but it also involved a plea to find some common ground in dealing with violent extremism in Canada—clearly a reference to elements of the Khalistani separatist movement. This has long been an issue for the Indian government.
The RCMP, as much as it might wish to work with its Indian law enforcement counterparts on identifying agreed and mutual threats, cannot itself conjure up any common ground.
To get there the Modi government will first have to extract itself from its plausible deniability box. That is unlikely to happen anytime soon. If and when it does it is likely to be driven by pressure from Washington, rather than from Ottawa.
Well, at least the RCMP did something. Usually there is just silence, so yay.
So for those interested in these matters, today must feel like the events of 15 February 1946 must have reverberated across the land. Today we boot diplomats; in 1946; we arrested a dozen Canadians and one Brit for contribution to GRU intelligence activities.