Jaskaran Sandhu
October 16, 2024 | 7 min. read | Baaz Investigation
On November 8, 2023, approximately two months after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau first announced in Parliament that Canadian intelligence believed India, through an Indian Government-Organized Crime Nexus, had assassinated a Sikh Canadian on Canadian soil, Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leader Pierre Poilievre and multiple CPC Members of Parliament attended a Diwali event alongside Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma. An RCMP investigation into Indian transnational repression was ongoing at this time and publicly known.
Two organizations with ties to India’s ruling BJP party—the Overseas Friends of India Canada (OFIC) and the Canada India Foundation (CIF)—co-hosted the event.
The Diwali gathering took place in Ottawa at the Sir John A. MacDonald Building. According to the OFIC event readout, all MPs in attendance were escorted into the building with “the beat of the drum.”
Poilievre and Verma were keynote speakers alongside CPC MP Todd Doherty, another event co-host. They then stood together to light a ceremonial lamp.
Verma has since been expelled from Canada, alongside other Indian diplomats, for being persons of interest in the RCMP investigation on India’s use of organized crime to target Canadians as part of a larger transnational repression and assassination program.
The RCMP shared in a press conference Monday that Indian diplomats, including the High Commission in Ottawa, have also been using their official positions to engage in clandestine activities in Canada, targeting the Sikh diaspora and coercing Canadians into gathering intelligence against the community.
Baaz has reported in the past on how Indian espionage and foreign interference are conducted out of Indian consulates and missions in Western countries such as Canada, including through stationed Indian intelligence officers in diplomatic roles.
MP Shuvaloy Majumdar and MP Arpan Khanna are the other CPC MPs seen in an event photograph sitting alongside Verma in the front row.
Majumdar has been accused of engaging in Anti-Sikh rhetoric and organizing in the past, including against Sikh genocide remembrance efforts.
In a foreward with Ujjal Dosanjh to Terry Milewski’s disputed report on Khalistan, published by the MacDonald-Laurier Institute (MLI), he targeted Sikhs for commemorating the lives lost during the Sikh Genocide. The same report was denounced in an open letter by over 50 Sikh scholars from leading academic institutions around the world for its poor quality and baseless targeting of the Sikh Canadian community.
In addition to this, when Bill 177, Sikh Genocide Awareness Week Act, 2020, was tabled in the Ontario Legislature by MPP Gurratan Singh, Majumdar came out against it and suggested this would impact India-Canada trade, even though three years earlier, in 2017, the Ontario Legislature had already recognized what happened to Sikhs during and after 1984 as a genocide.
Earlier this year, regarding Khanna, PressProgress wrote that “paranoia and confusion is running through conservative circles in Southwestern Ontario as word spreads that Canada’s spy agency is asking questions about India and a local Conservative nomination vote last year.” The nature of the CSIS interest in Khanna or his riding is unclear, and he has denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of an investigation.
The only non-CPC MP to attend was Liberal MP Chandra Arya. Arya has faced controversy for raising an RSS flag on Parliament Hill, something he denies, and sponsoring a Parliamentary Petition calling on his government to reconsider and scrap a planned Foreign Influence Transparency Registry. He has also been accused of spreading misinformation targeting the Sikh Canadian community and Sikh organizations.
The Organizers of the Event and Their Backgrounds
“Satish Thakkar of CIF also gave a short speech,” the OFIC event readout says, adding that “Shiv Bhasker recognized all the sponsors and introduced the members of the organizing committee. The program concluded with a vote of thanks by Dr. Narinder Garg.”
According to OFIC, the “Members Organizing Committee” of the event included, in part:
CGIF’s, OFIC’s, and CIF’s Connections to India
The Canada India Global Forum (CIGF) was formerly the Overseas Friends of the BJP (OFBJP), a diaspora-based support group for the current Indian government. On its website, it boasts of “strong connections with government entities” in both countries and helps to “collaborate with the High Commission of India” on economic matters.
“The OFBJP lies at the centre of fundraising efforts in the Indian diaspora for the BJP’s electoral efforts. Since June 2018, the OFBJP Canada chapter changed its name to the Canada India Global Forum (CIGF) and is based in Brampton, Ontario,” the World Sikh Organization of Canada (WSO) and the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) report on the RSS Network in Canada found.
The report also covers how the CIGF has links with the RSS, the paramilitary and far-right organization that is the spiritual centre of the governing BJP in India and a key piece in the larger Hindu Nationalist network of organizations known as the Sangh Parivar.
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has called on Canada to ban the RSS as part of the actions the Trudeau government should take in light of the ongoing RCMP investigation and findings against India.
CIGF has also been the subject of CSIS scrutiny, and its President, Dr. Shivam Dwivedi, has been visited by CSIS on multiple occasions, according to a Journal De Montreal report, concerning their links with the Indian government amidst concerted efforts by Canadian officials to root out Indian foreign interference in Canada.
The ongoing Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference has heard from intelligence officials on how India, the second biggest culprit for foreign interference in Canada, has been using proxy diaspora groups to influence and undermine Canadian democratic institutions and actors.
The CIGF is linked with the OFIC through a shared director, Bhasker, as well as shared executives like Dr. Garg. The OFIC’s leadership can be seen here, and the CIGF leadership here.
Another linked organization that shares directors with CIGF is Sahyog Canada. Sahyog purports to assist international students in Canada. All three organizations are linked to the Indian High Commission and have even held joint programs together.
The CIF, another co-host of the Diwali event, also has close ties with the Indian government.
“[T]he CIF has held several online events throughout 2022 that featured speakers from India who have ties to the RSS and who have made a number of inflammatory and often violent remarks towards India’s minorities, sometimes leading to deadly consequences,” the WSO and NCCM found in their report on the RSS in Canada.
The CIF are also Sikh Genocide deniers, a fact that eventually led Nav Bhatia, well known as the Toronto Raptor’s Superfan, to reject and return an award to CIF in 2020.
Indian Interference in Canada, including the CPC Leadership Race
An earlier Baaz investigation found that the Indian government had interfered with the 2022 CPC leadership race to hinder the Patrick Brown campaign. Brown had taken positions deemed contrary to India’s interests at that time, including comments on the Farmers’ Protest and the death of Deep Sidhu.
Baaz learned from multiple sources with knowledge of the interference that representatives of an Indian Consulate in Canada visited at least one Member of Parliament and urged the MP to withdraw their support for Patrick Brown during the CPC leadership race.
This was in addition to the Indian Consulate barring Brown from Indian community and Consulate events in 2022.
Pro-India actors and organizations in Canada also appeared to have at least independently supported the Pierre Poilievre leadership campaign, including a home visit in April 2022 hosted by Aditya Tawatia, the Convener BC Chapter for CIGF.
When questioned whether Poilievre or his team were aware of the background of supporters with links to the Indian government during their leadership campaign, Sarah Fischer, Director of Communications for the CPC, shared with Baaz that “throughout the leadership race, Mr. Poilievre attended events with Canadians of all backgrounds, including many members of the Sikh community.”
Since then, the Foreign Interference Inquiry has heard that India did interfere in the CPC leadership race. A National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians report has shared similar findings.
Ongoing Sikh Canadian Concerns with the CPC
In light of Monday’s RCMP press conference conveying that there is a “significant threat” to Canadians from the Indian government, well beyond what was initially understood, Sikhs have voiced concerns about Poilievre’s response to Indian transnational repression.
Poilievre did release a statement shortly after the RCMP shared that the “breadth and depth” of organized crime and transnational repression orchestrated by “agents of the Government of India” targeting Sikh Canadians across Canada is of serious concern.
“Any foreign interference from any country, including India, is unacceptable and must be stopped,” Poilievre said, adding that “Our government’s first job is to keep our citizens safe from foreign threats.”
However, Poilievre did not share this statement on any of his own platforms or accounts; instead, it only appeared on the feeds of some of his MPs.
Poilievre has not yet taken the security clearance required to receive a full intelligence briefing on India’s transnational repression in Canada. Making him the only major party leader not to do so.
Jaskaran Sandhu hails from Brampton, Canada, and is the co-founder of Baaz. He is a Strategist at the public affairs and relations agency State Strategy and a lawyer. Jaskaran also previously served as Executive Director for the World Sikh Organization of Canada and as a Senior Advisor to Brampton’s Office of the Mayor. You can find Jaskaran on Twitter at @JaskaranSandhu_
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