MPs React to Report Alleging Ottawa Leaked Info to US Media Outlet on India

Conservative MP Raquel Dancho participates in a meeting of the House of Commons public safety committee on Oct. 22, 2024, in Ottawa. House of Commons/Screenshot via The Epoch Times

Conservative MPs on Oct. 22 reacted to a media report alleging Ottawa leaked information about India’s activities on Canadian soil to a U.S. newspaper. The Tories say the alleged leak was used for political purposes, while the Privy Council Office says no classified intelligence entered the public domain.

“It’s clear to me that we have a government that feels that it can leak information if it’s in their own political benefit,” said Tory MP Dane Lloyd on Oct. 22 during a meeting of the House of Commons public safety committee.

Lloyd’s colleague, Raquel Dancho, asked whether the alleged leak to the U.S. outlet was meant to gain support from Washington to deal with New Delhi on the issue of foreign interference. Government MPs in the committee didn’t comment on the issue.

Lloyd and Dancho were reacting to a Globe and Mail article published on Oct. 22 which says, based on anonymous sources, that two senior government officials provided non-public information to the Washington Post.

According to the Globe report, the officials alleged India was involved in the murder of Sukhdool Singh Gill, a Sikh leader in Winnipeg. The report alleges the officials said India’s home secretary was involved in authorizing attacks on Sikh separatists in Canada.

The report also alleges that the Washington Post was provided the information in the week before Thanksgiving and was told to hold onto it until Ottawa announced the expulsion of six Indian diplomats on Oct. 14. On the same day, the RCMP linked Indian government agents to homicides and extortion in Canada.

A spokesperson for the Privy Council Office told The Epoch Times in a statement that “none of the information in the public domain that has been reported on is the result of classified intelligence.”

The public announcements by the RCMP and the federal government didn’t mention the case of Gill, who was gunned down on Sept. 20, 2023. Two days prior, on Sept. 18, 2023, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had told the House of Commons there were “credible allegations of a potential link” between Indian government agents and the murder of another Sikh leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Nijjar, who had organized a non-binding referendum to create a Khalistani state and secede from India, was killed in June 2023 in Surrey, B.C. Suspects in the murder have been arrested and are awaiting trial.

Global Affairs Canada said the six expelled Indian diplomats are “persons of interest” in the Nijjar case and that India refused to waive their diplomatic immunity in order for them to be interviewed by police.

One of the diplomats, Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma, said earlier this week he had “nothing at all” to do with the murder of Nijjar and other alleged criminal activity conducted by Indian government agents. Verma told CTV News the Canadian government had not shared a “shred of evidence” with his country about the activity and called the accusation “politically motivated.”

India has long accused Canada of harbouring Sikh separatists and Verma said it’s in his national interest to keep tabs on them.

Leaks

The issue of intelligence leaks has been a sensitive one for the Canadian government. A string of leaks on Beijing’s interference in Canada’s democracy in late 2022 built pressure on Ottawa to eventually launch a public inquiry into the threat a year later.

While testifying at the inquiry on Oct. 16, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the unidentified intelligence leaker a “criminal.”

During the public safety committee meeting, Tory MP Raquel Dancho, who represents a Winnipeg riding, asked why she learned about the Sukhdool Singh Gill murder case from a leak to a U.S. outlet.

“When we’re talking about protecting national security, I would wonder what processes were followed that the Washington Post journalists were entitled to some of this information, and that we weren’t,” said Dancho, who serves as her party’s public safety critic. “I would like to know why this information was leaked. Did the prime minister know? Did he authorize it?”

The United States is dealing with its own case of an alleged assassination plot targeting a Sikh activist allegedly linked to India, with an indictment before the courts. Washington, however, has kept its relationship with New Delhi cordial, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting the United States in late September.