Indian high commissioner accuses Trudeau of destroying bilateral relationship, says ‘mistrust’ persists

India’s high commissioner to Canada — who has been expelled from the country — says while the economic relationship between Canada and India will likely be preserved, the political one is now characterized by “mistrust.”

In an exclusive interview with CTV’s Question Period, airing Sunday, Sanjay Kumar Verma said any decision by India about whether or not to replace him and his expelled colleagues would entail a “discussion” between the two governments.

“Largely given the mistrust that we have in (Prime Minister Justin) Trudeau and his team, we’ll have concerns, and we’ll discuss it very carefully with them,” he told host Vassy Kapelos. “Our security and safeties are concerned, so there are so many things.”

Verma also accused the Trudeau government of failing to tamp down the Sikh separatist movement operating in Canada, and elements of it that India sees as extreme in nature. The expelled high commissioner pointed to 27 outstanding extradition cases as a significant point of friction for India.

“We only want the Canadian regime of the day, the government of the day, to understand my core concerns, and try to act on that sincerely, rather than being bedfellows with those who are trying to challenge Indian sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he said.

Canada’s most recent high commissioner to India, Cameron MacKay, said the federal government is acting on the issue, and that Canada has sought more information from India on 26 of those 27 extradition files.

“Let me be clear,” he told Kapelos, also in an interview on CTV’s Question Period, airing Sunday. “In the past, where India has shared sufficient information, we have successfully extradited people from Canada to face law.”

“It’s a diversion tactic to claim that Canada has been uncooperative in these law enforcement matters,” he also said. “I consider it to be simply not true.”

The RCMP and the federal government earlier this week accused Indian diplomats and consular officials based in Canada of engaging in clandestine activities linked to serious criminal activity in this country, including homicides and extortions.

Verma, along with five other Indian officials working in Canada, was declared persona non-grata by the Canadian government and expelled this week, for refusing to waive diplomatic immunity to be questioned by law enforcement.

High Commissioner of India to Canada Sanjay Kumar Verma poses for a photo in Ottawa, Thursday, Aug. 31, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle

India is categorizing Canada’s accusations as politically motivated. It’s since expelled six Canadian diplomats in kind.

It’s also been little more than a year since Trudeau rose in the House of Commons and said there were “credible allegations” that agents of the Indian government were involved in the murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in B.C. last summer. Diplomatic relations between the two countries have been tense ever since.

Verma also criticized Trudeau for how he handled the investigation into Nijjar’s murder, and allegations related to it. Verma accused the Canadian prime minister of relying on intelligence and not evidence.

“On the basis of intelligence, if you want to destroy a relationship, be my guest,” Verma said. “That’s what he did.”

The government of India has so far refused to cooperate with Canada’s investigation into Nijjar’s murder. It is cooperating, however, in a U.S. investigation into the foiled assassination plot of another Sikh activist and dual U.S.-Canadian citizen, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, in New York City last year.

On Thursday, the U.S. Justice Department announced criminal charges against a then-Indian government employee. The unsealed indictment also connects that assassination attempt to Nijjar’s case.

When pressed on the contents of that newly unsealed indictment, and the connection laid out in it between the American investigation and Nijjar’s murder, Verma said he “entirely refute(s)” the connection, pointing instead at Trudeau for failing to follow proper diplomatic “practice.”

“Evidence should have been shared first, but someone decided to stand in the Parliament and talk about a thing for which, he himself has said, there was no hard evidence,” Verma said. “So let’s be very clear what we are talking about.”

“And the day on which he did that, since then, he has made it show that the bilateral relations with India only goes downwards, spiraling down,” he added, later calling Trudeau’s alleged evidence “hearsay.”

MacKay insists Canada, at multiple junctures, tried to share evidence with the Indian government.

“Frankly, Canada was seeking India’s cooperation and collaboration in this regard,” he told Kapelos. “We just haven’t seen it.”

“Instead, the Indian government, I think, for domestic political purposes, has responded by vilifying Canada, by dismissing evidence that we provided to them,” he said.

MacKay said the move appears to have worked for a domestic audience in India.

“That’s been a very successful domestic communications strategy for India,” he said. “Internationally, I don’t think it’s credible at all, but certainly it has worked for them within India.”

Canada-India Trade Relationship

In terms of other aspects of Canada-India relations, Verma said he “absolutely” agrees with Canadian International Trade Minister Mary Ng that there won’t be an impact on the trade relationship between the two countries, despite increasingly fraught diplomatic relations.

“People-to-people relationship, trade relationship, cultural relationship, science and technology, you know, education, those relationships have got nothing to do with it,” he said. “This is a very different conversation what we were having today, and there will be emotions on both sides, and we cannot stop that.”

“So there will be emotions which may impact a few of those deals, but larger picture is that I don’t see much impact on non-political bilateral relations,” he added.

Verma’s comments echo those made by Ng earlier this week, who in a statement posted on social media, sought to reassure businesses that the federal government “remains fully committed to supporting the well-established commercial ties between Canada and India.”

“However we must consider our economic interests with the need to protect Canadians and uphold the rule of law,” Ng also wrote. “We will not tolerate any foreign government threatening, extorting, or harming Canadian citizens on our soil.”

India is among the world’s 10 largest economies, and in 2020, launched negotiations with Canada toward a free trade agreement — talks that were indefinitely put on pause shortly after Trudeau’s accusations in the House of Commons related to Nijjar’s killing.

Ng, in an interview with CTV’s Question Period in February, said the status of the negotiations was not tied to the accusations levied by Trudeau, and at the time wouldn’t specify what Canada needed to see from India to resume work on a free trade deal.

Relations with India, meanwhile, are a critical piece of Canada’s nearly two-year-old Indo-Pacific Strategy, and its efforts to bolster economic ties with other countries in the region while taking a tougher stance against China.

With files from CTV News’ Brennan MacDonald and Stephanie Ha

 

You can watch Verma’s full interview on CTV’s Question Period in the video player at the top of this article.

This transcript of Verma’s interview with Vassy Kapelos for Sunday’s episode of CTV’s Question Period has been edited for length and clarity.

 

Vassy Kapelos: I want to start off and ask you very directly: If, High Commissioner, you have not done anything wrong, why are you not co-operating with Canadian authorities?

High Commissioner Verma: There are a couple of things we needed to see; some evidence on the basis of which we can converse with our Canadian counterparts. Unfortunately, not a shred of evidence has been shared with us. Any evidence which is shared has to be legally acceptable. We are a country of rule of law, and so is Canada, so therefore anything which is acceptable in the Canadian court of law would largely also be acceptable in the Indian court of law, and therefore that evidence will work. Unfortunately, we have not got anything from any Canadian official which can lead us to a better spot.

Vassy Kapelos: The RCMP, our policing agency, has framed it very differently. I’m going to read exactly what they said about this issue in their statement. “The deputy commissioner of federal policing, Mark Flynn, made attempts to meet with his Indian law enforcement counterparts to discuss violent extremism occurring in Canada and India and present evidence pertaining to agents of the government of India’s involvement in serious criminal activity in Canada. These attempts were unsuccessful. Therefore, Deputy Commissioner Flynn met with officials of the government of India, along with the national security and intelligence advisor and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, David Morrison, over the weekend.” The RCMP position and the federal government’s position is they did it to show your government, and your policing agencies, the evidence that you require, and you refused to look at it.

High Commissioner Verma: So the response to this is that they wanted to leave for India on the eighth of October. They gave their completed application formally on the eighth of October. So (a) visa needs to be affixed. For any government delegation to travel to another country, you need an agenda to go by. There was no agenda at all.

So therefore it was largely technical. I have to find the correct official on the Indian side, so that the kind of things that I wanted to discuss, for which I needed an agenda. There was no agenda shared with us. (An) agenda was shared at the last moment, I believe even after the flight would have departed. So it was nothing to do with it. I think it was pre-planned. They knew that the visa cannot be issued in half an hour to an hour, and therefore they did it. I think it was absolutely politically motivated.

Vassy Kapelos: Let me clarify here, are you saying that meeting couldn’t take place, not because Indian officials didn’t want to see the evidence, but because the proper procedures hadn’t been followed?

High Commissioner Verma: Not procedures. Visas were not there, and they needed to apply for a visa. There is time which is taken to issue a visa. Between India and Canada, there is no visa-free agreement. So therefore, in general, for a government official from India to come to Canada, it would take at least a week to get the visa. Same thing happens to the Canadian officials, and they just gave it to us as fait accompli. So visa is one. Second is, what did they want to talk about? That was not shared at all.

Vassy Kapelos: Isn’t it clear, though, if the RCMP is coming to speak to counterparts, and given what’s occurred over the last year, that this would be involving the case at hand and the cases at hand?

High Commissioner Verma: The most important case at hand, from our point of view, are the 26 extradition requests, and so many other arrest requests. So we would think that they are coming for that — they will hand over some of these people to us. It is not always that, unless you clarify the agenda, we would exactly read your mind.

Vassy Kapelos: And I have questions about what you mentioned in a moment, but just sticking to the what the RCMP and the federal government have put forward. At some point, they would have communicated, ‘we’re coming to share with you, evidence, evidence that you have asked for’ — including (on this show), in this chair [a] number of months ago — ‘we are sharing with you evidence of very serious allegations that we have made, involving yourself, your colleagues and other agents of the government of India.’ I guess it’s confounding to me, and I imagine to people watching, why a visa or something of that nature would get in the way of India wanting to know what kind of evidence. Why would you not want to know all the evidence Canada has before it, unless you have something to hide?

High Commissioner Verma: We have been trying to get the Canadian officials, the law and order officials, to talk to their Indian counterparts for [the] last one year. And we were the ones who have been asking for it. For [the] last one year, there has been no movement. Now, let’s ask: “Why this movement, now?” So that was being forced on us, without having an agenda; without knowing whom to meet.

See, like in any other large police organization or intelligence agencies — we have the NIA, which is the National Investigation Agency — they will have different officials dealing with different subjects. They don’t deal with Canada as such. They deal with extradition, they deal with Interpol. So what is it that they wanted to talk about? Unless that agenda is clarified, how do I get those people …

Vassy Kapelos: But once it is …

High Commissioner Verma: Once it is, we are always there.

Vassy Kapelos: So now you know what the allegations are. Has anybody met with the Canadian side to get that evidence?

High Commissioner Verma: We are not (…) as our agencies. Canadian officials in their interrogation or intelligence agency will need to travel. So you travel like an official. For which, one, you give me an agenda, I will have to find out which official works on those agenda, and then whether the official is available. Because, like the Canadian officials keep travelling globally, Indian officials also keep travelling globally. So if they are not in my capital, you land up, and then you say: “You know, no one met me.”

Vassy Kapelos: I take your point. I guess what’s confusing on the Canadian side is that we are not used to the RCMP delivering a press conference like they did, or the federal government. I think they are understanding of the seriousness with which these allegations are being delivered. And I am a little perplexed that the kinds of reasons you’re providing to not look at that evidence don’t seem commensurate with the crime that, essentially, you’re all being accused of. If someone accused me of being a person of interest in a murder, I’d want to know everything that they had on me, particularly if I had nothing to hide, which again, allows me to circle back to the idea that you are leaving Canadians with the impression that your government does have something to hide.

High Commissioner Verma: Absolutely not. And in fact, we have been asking for it for the last one year, which the RCMP has also said. And then, if do not share with us the reason for your visit, how do we know? As I told you earlier, that my premier reason, which will come to my mind, (is) that maybe you are going to talk about my extradition requests, because to me, that is my core concern with Canada.

Your concerns could be different from us. Fine. That’s the nature of diplomacy. But then I have to know. So today, when I came to see you, you knew that I was coming for what purpose? So if I don’t tell you, I land up and say, “You know what, why don’t you interview me?”

Vassy Kapelos: I take your point. But to be fair, all I said was we requested an interview, that’s all. And particularly, when you know what the RCMP, what the Canadian government, I should say, what the prime minister stood up and said, wouldn’t it follow that the evidence you’ve been asking for would be delivered in such a meeting, and maybe the subject that you want to bring up would be conversed about as well?

High Commissioner Verma: So they should have said so.

Vassy Kapelos: So just to be clear, nobody said we want to meet because of “A, B and C,” they just said, we want to meet?

High Commissioner Verma: No. Not even meet. They said that we need a visa to go to India. When it was asked of them, they said, we want to meet our counterparts. Then when it was asked, what will be the agenda for meeting — because I have to pull out those officials if they are present in India, if they’re not present, to schedule it at some other time — nothing came back.

Vassy Kapelos: Let me move on to what they said in the days that followed, and very specifically and point-blank, put their allegations to you, particularly what came from (Foreign Affairs) Minister (Melanie) Joly. The allegations that she makes are very serious — that you, yourself, are a person of interest in the murder of Hardeep Nijjar. Did you have anything to do with his murder?

High Commissioner Verma: Nothing at all. No evidence presented. Politically motivated. And more or less, if Mr. Trudeau or his colleagues know about it, is it not a crime not to file a charge sheet? Is it not a crime not to go the judicial process?

Vassy Kapelos: But, I mean, you’re a person of interest. You haven’t been accused of anything, they would like to ask you questions, and therefore asked for you or your government to waive your diplomatic immunity so those questions can be asked. You would not do that.

High Commissioner Verma: On what basis? If you are a defendant, for example, which I’m not, then you will be shared with evidence, on the basis of which anything can take place. And that happens even if you have been caught for a petty crime.

Vassy Kapelos: Well, actually, the RCMP here, our policing forces, can say they have evidence, and they would like to ask questions. They don’t have to show that evidence right away.

High Commissioner Verma: If I’m going for an interrogation, I need to know what I’m interrogated for. I need to know what is the evidence that you have, so that I go prepared.

Vassy Kapelos: Let me put to you what Minister Joly said. “The decision to expel these individuals was made with great consideration, and only after the RCMP gathered ample, clear and concrete evidence, which identified six individuals as persons of interest in the Nijjar case,” one of whom is you.

High Commissioner Verma: Which was never shared. Let me see the concrete evidence she’s talking about. As far as I’m concerned, she’s talking politically. As I’m concerned, she has got nothing in her hand.

Vassy Kapelos: Do you think, though, honestly, a country like this one, that does have a historied relationship with India, would stand up and make an accusation like that without any evidence? And in all seriousness, do you think that is the case? And why would you, again, not want to know what that evidence is?

High Commissioner Verma: I want to know the evidence. But there has to be a way in seeking those evidence, and there has to be a way in confirming those evidence. And the first point is, please show me the evidence. And I have been talking about it from day one: unless I know what I am being asked for, what are the evidence that that you have, how do you prepare my defence?

Vassy Kapelos: But it’s not a defence. They’re simply asking questions.

High Commissioner Verma: It is a defence. That’s what people fail to understand.

Vassy Kapelos: But you haven’t been charged, you need a defence when you’ve been charged, you’re just a person of interest.

High Commissioner Verma: No, I need a defence even when I go for interrogation. People can go to interrogation with their lawyers. Let’s not complicate this issue. So if there is someone who has complained that a person is a rapist, that after that complaint, the first thing that the law and order authorities will do is interrogate. When they go for interrogation, they have a right to carry a lawyer with them.

Vassy Kapelos: Did anyone deny you that right? I mean, they just asked that (you) waive diplomatic immunity.

High Commissioner Verma: They didn’t even share why I am a person of interest.

Vassy Kapelos: The accusation has been levelled that you and your colleagues, essentially, played a role in collecting information, more broadly, but I imagine the allegation is specific to Mr. Nijjar as well, on his whereabouts, that could be then fed to people who would have murdered him, or would have been involved in other crimes, in other cases. Have you, in your position, ever directed or coerced anybody into gathering information on pro-Khalistan activists, that you could then later target?

High Commissioner Verma: So first of all, I, as high commissioner of India, have never done anything of that kind. That is one. Second, my colleagues: do we want to know what pro-Khalistani elements in Canada are doing? Yes, we do. That’s my national interest. That’s my core concern with Canada, which is trying to tore up Indian territory. So if the Canadian politicians are so novice that they want me not to know what my enemies are doing here, I’m sorry, then they don’t know what the international relations is all about.

Vassy Kapelos: Are you using legal means to monitor them, or is it illegal, what you’re doing?

High Commissioner Verma: It is all overt. There is nothing covert. It’s all overt. So we read the newspapers, we read their statements, since we understand Punjabi. So we read their social media posts, and try to infer from there.

Vassy Kapelos: Has the government of India ever been involved in targeting, for death, any of these individuals?

High Commissioner Verma: Never.

Vassy Kapelos: Do you condemn Mr. Nijjar’s death — murder?

High Commissioner Verma: I do condemn.

Vassy Kapelos: You condemn his murder.

High Commissioner Verma: Any murder is wrong and bad. I do condemn. And that is what I’ve said in many interviews. Let’s get to the bottom of the issue, but to get to the bottom of the issue, there has to be evidence shared that you have, and we’ll share our evidence. Don’t we do that in the extradition cases? We have sent 26 dossiers to Canada. What has happened?

Vassy Kapelos: And I understand the point that you have around concern of a lack of action on that. Can you understand how, to Canadians, that would never justify participation in an extrajudicial murder?

High Commissioner Verma: It should not happen anywhere in the world. I know the countries which have done it, and some of them are G7 countries, by the way. So let’s not talk about it. There should not be double standards. So as far as we are concerned, the largest democracy in the world, we are committed not to doing extrajudicial killings on any territory.

Vassy Kapelos: The U.S., this week, seems to buoy the Canadian case. They have unsealed — and I’ll put the contents of it to you, and in case our audience isn’t familiar — they have unsealed an indictment about an attempted murder of one of Mr. Nijjar’s associates. They have revealed the name, essentially, of the individual who, at the time, was working in the cabinet secretariat of the Indian government, who contracted out another individual, whom they also arrested, who then, that individual, hired a hitman, who was an undercover agent.

They very specifically in that document talk about how there were conversations among those individuals about how Nijjar was, “also the target,” that he was number four and number three on the list. “And not to worry, because we have so many targets. We have so many targets. But the good news is this. The good news is this. Now, no need to wait.”

This is evidence. This is the indictment. This is in the courts. That’s what you said you wanted.

High Commissioner Verma: Indictment is not conviction. Let’s understand, as democracies.

Vassy Kapelos: I understand, but you said when submitted to a court, is what you’re looking for, this has been submitted to the court.

High Commissioner Verma: So indictment is not a conviction. That’s the first thing I want you to understand. And therefore, logically, it will follow its judicial process. And we are fine with that, so much so that we ourselves formed a committee, a high-level committee, to help the Americans in this. So I will not be able to talk much about it, because my mandate is India-Canada relations, and not India-U.S. relations. So I won’t know the nitty gritties, frankly, and I’ll put it on the table. But as far as the process is concerned, when it was informed, we formed a high-level committee, and which is working in tandem with the U.S. law enforcement agencies.

Vassy Kapelos: They visited the U.S. this week, in fact, and it was reported that, upon a kind of frustration with a lack of vigour with which that committee is investigating the issue, that is why the name of the individual, who was associated with the Government of India very directly, as unsealed. That had not been the case for months, until now. Again, the connection here is made between your government and the murder of Mr. Nijjar. Do you refute this connection in this indictment?

High Commissioner Verma: I entirely refute this connection due to various reasons. Canada didn’t follow the practice, which should have been there. Evidence should have been shared first, but someone decided to stand in the Parliament and talk about a thing for which, he himself has said, there was no hard evidence.

So let’s be very clear what we are talking about. And the day on which he did that, since then, he has made it show that the bilateral relations with India only goes downwards; spiraling down.

Vassy Kapelos: I want to ask you about the future of that relationship. But again, I keep hearing you say it’s about the evidence. It’s about the evidence that the prime minister himself said, there’s no hard evidence. At the time, he was talking about intelligence. The RCMP, our policing agency, which is independent from politics, from the federal government, from the political motivation that you ascribe — it is an independent policing agency — says they have evidence on this.

High Commissioner Verma: How politically independent they are, we can discuss it till the cows come home.

Vassy Kapelos: They are.

High Commissioner Verma: That’s your view. I will give you my view. So, till two days before, they said there is no evidence to share, and in the foreign interference inquiry meeting, all of a sudden, there was all the evidence in the world available with them. So let’s not go there. And the political motivation, I have been talking about it for a long time. No official, no institution, can remain completely aloof of what’s happening politically.

Vassy Kapelos: When you talk about political motivation, I imagine, and your government has referenced this in the past week, that you’re referencing the prime minister, in your estimation, courting the Sikh separatist vote. What evidence do you have that the prime minister would use a desire for a certain voting bloc to accuse one of our most significant trading partners, and people-to-people relationships, of the kind of crimes that he has? Do you actually think that he would take it so lightly and care so much about his own political victories to put this relationship at risk. Isn’t it hard to believe? Because that’s what you’re accusing him of, and I don’t see any evidence of that.

High Commissioner Verma: I think Mr. Trudeau should respond to it. The problem is that, when he accused, he himself admitted that there was no hard evidence.

Vassy Kapelos: There was intelligence shared with him by our Five Eyes allies.

High Commissioner Verma: On the basis of intelligence, if you want to destroy a relationship, be my guest. That’s what he did.

Vassy Kapelos: But perhaps the intelligence, as it’s described in this indictment, is about a crime so severe in nature that it’s impossible for him to ignore. Could that not be understandable?

High Commissioner Verma: If there is such compelling evidence, why haven’t they gone to the court of law so far?

Vassy Kapelos: The RCMP has. Eight individuals have been charged with homicide.

High Commissioner Verma: But that is not the case. Cases linking of so-called agents of the government of India. That case is murder, and any criminal who is here, some of them came here as innocent international students, and they turned into criminals in this country. I don’t know what happened. How did they get influenced? I have no information on that.

Vassy Kapelos: They’re alleging that that’s where you and your colleagues play a role. I’m saying that I understand that you’re saying you don’t, but the allegation connected to these, that the RCMP very clearly presented, is that you and your colleagues were involved in coercing these individuals in some ways, to commit crimes, some violent in nature, in order to further your cause.

High Commissioner Verma: Just to reframe a bit. If they have evidence of what we have coerced, which can be legally accepted, why are they not sharing it? Because the evidence, what they call “this evidence,” is hearsay, and I know for sure that they go from one person to the other asking them about the hearsay. Most of them are those who are pro-Khalistan elements, anti-India elements, anti-India-Canada elements, and then they take that as evidence.

Vassy Kapelos: The only thing I would respond to say to that is that I’ve read the U.S. indictment very closely, which is similar in nature, in the allegations are being made. And it’s not just hearsay. They have an individual who has listened and been a part of the conversations, directly with a person who represents the government of India, who is telling them to murder someone who espouses the views that you are concerned about. That is not just hearsay.

High Commissioner Verma: Does Canada have that? There are two different countries, two different “crimes” taken place. The place of crime are different, and therefore I would expect very much the Canadian government to come out clean, showing me the evidence of anything.

Vassy Kapelos: You can take issue with them, I understand that. I’m saying, from my perspective, having read it, that that isn’t just hearsay, that the connection they lay out to the Government of India and Mr. Nijjar’s murder is not just hearsay. It is based on evidence that they have, that they have spelled out.

High Commissioner Verma: That is why there is a high-level committee talking to them. The Canadian agencies which are talking to us have not given a shred of evidence, including on the 12th October meeting in Singapore for us to act upon. Gone are the days when the so-called developed countries or Western bloc would ask a developing country, “you must do this,” and they will run after them and do it. We are a rule-of-law country, as Canada prides itself to be a rule of law country, so won’t you give me evidences which are suitable for my own legal process?

Vassy Kapelos: They wanted to give it, that’s all I’ll say.

High Commissioner Verma: Why haven’t they given it earlier? And if they have not, then on what basis are these statements are being made?

Vassy Kapelos: Before we go, I do want to ask you about the larger picture of the relationship as you leave, because it is a significant relationship, both in an economic and other sense. First of all, will your colleagues be replaced? Will you and your colleagues, when you leave, is the Indian government going to replace you?

High Commissioner Verma: That is a discussion we will have with the Canadian side. Largely given the mistrust that we have in Mr. Trudeau and his team, we’ll have concerns, and we’ll discuss it very carefully with them. Our security and safeties are concerned, so there are so many things.

Khalistani extremists are being encouraged all the time. I also know, again, this is my allegation, I’m not giving you any evidence on that, I also know that some of these Khalistani extremists and terrorists are deep assets of CSIS. So I’m giving that accusation again; I’m not giving you an evidence.

Vassy Kapelos: Without evidence, just the same way you’re criticizing the government of. Why would you do the same thing you’re accusing the government of?

High Commissioner Verma: Because that is what is understood by the Canadian politicians, that someone stands on the floor of the Parliament (and) says something, which he later says, I didn’t have any evidence, and that was taken as biblical truth.

Vassy Kapelos: But you’re criticizing the prime minister, and then, and then I’ll just point out, doing the same thing. I want to move on, though, because I asked if you will be replaced. Will your government allow the Canadian diplomats who are being expelled to be replaced?

High Commissioner Verma: The same thing. It is a matter of conversation between the two governments. As to the relationship itself is concerned, it is a large relationship. Canada had been a friend of India. Canada will remain a friend of India. There had been issues between two countries that many countries have. That’s not a surprise. We only want the Canadian regime of the day, the government of the day, to understand my core concerns, and try to act on that sincerely, rather than being bedfellows with those who are trying to challenge Indian sovereignty and territorial integrity.

And mind you, the largest Sikh population in the world is in India. They undergo elections at least every five years. Their election voting percentage is much higher than any time of Canadian elections. So I can go on and on, on this, but the short point is that what happens to India will be decided by Indians. These Khalistani terrorists and extremists who are based out of Canada are not Indians. They are Canadian citizens. And no government should encourage their citizens to attack sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Vassy Kapelos: And to be clear, the government of India should not seek to extrajudicially harm those people.

High Commissioner Verma: Completely. Absolutely.

Vassy Kapelos: Just one final question on what happens with the relationship going forward, our trade minister has explicitly said that she does not anticipate the trade relationship be impacted by this. Is that the view also of your government?

High Commissioner Verma: Absolutely. People-to-people relationship, trade relationship, cultural relationship, science and technology, you know, education; those relationships have got nothing to do with it. This is a very different conversation what we were having today, and there will be emotions on both sides, and we cannot stop that. So there will be emotions which may impact a few of those deals, but larger picture is that I don’t see much impact on non-political bilateral relations.

Vassy Kapelos: I— Okay, I will leave it on that note. Thank you, High Commissioner.

High Commissioner Verma: Thank you very much. Thank you so much. 

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