Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, centre, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, left, and Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly participate in a news conference on the investigative efforts related to violent criminal activity occurring in Canada with connections to India, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Oct. 14.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
Canadians have often thought of this country as the Boy Scout nation. The title gets applied with both fondness and mockery, but either way, it doesn’t quite hit the mark. In our dealings with the rest of the world, and our understanding of how things work out there in the real world, Canada is not really a Boy Scout nation. We’re more the Republic of Naifs.
We have no idea how lucky we’ve had it for the last century and a half. Living under the American umbrella, and before that the protection of the British Empire, we could allow ourselves to believe that a liberal, benevolent, law-abiding, rule-following shade was the natural order of life on this planet. Our ignorance allowed us to be blissful, here in our happy Hobbiton.
But a changing and increasingly multipolar world, with rising powers who play by their own rules and aggressively pursue their own interests, has been teaching Canada unpleasant truths. Some more were served up on Thanksgiving.
On Monday, the RCMP alleged that agents of the government of India are involved in homicide, extortions and other serious criminal activities in Canada. After Ottawa’s request for New Delhi to co-operate with investigations was rebuffed, the Trudeau government expelled several Indian diplomats. New Delhi responded by booting an equal number of Canadian diplomats.
This is not the first time that Canada has accused the Indian government of directing acts of violence against Canadians in Canada. It may not be the last. One of the new wrinkles on Monday, according to Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly, is that after Canada went public last year with allegations of Indian government involvement in a murder in Canada, the meddling and criminal activity directly from New Delhi in Canada did not stop – it increased.
Among those Indian diplomats that sources tell The Globe are alleged to have been involved in the 2023 murder in Canada of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar is High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma, India’s most senior diplomat in Canada.
Note that the title is high commissioner, not ambassador. That’s because Canada and India, as members of the Commonwealth, in theory consider each other to be less foreign states and more cousins. Our diplomatic missions on each other’s territory are called high commissions, not embassies – to indicate that we’re all family.
It’s a fiction from another time, and the exposure of its hollowness may be a harbinger of less happy times.
The thing about power is that countries with more are likely to exercise it, and countries with less are at risk of having it exercised against them – regardless of what was promised, or what unenforceable international agreements were signed.
The Trudeau government discovered this in its early dealings with China, with which it had once hoped to reach a free trade and investment agreement. The case of the Two Michaels, when Beijing violated all treaties and norms by taking hostage two random Canadians, was an overdue wake-up call. It made Ottawa realize that greater economic integration with the People’s Republic of China is a threat, not an opportunity.
Going into business with organized crime never ends well. Particularly for Boy Scouts.
A century and a half of Canadian foreign policy always sought to put some distance between us and the hegemon – first the British Empire, then the Americans during the long American Century. It was fair for Canada to aim for that, but the superpower we were pushing against was consistently more blessing than imposition, because despite an insistent pursuit of its own needs it was also liberal and law-abiding and surprisingly respectful of our independence.
Most of the world doesn’t get to live next to neighbours like that. History is often about the strong doing what they want, and the weak enduring what they must. Ask anyone in Eastern Europe. Or ask the Gulf States, whose main fear today is that if Israel retaliates against Iran, Iran will retaliate by bombing not Israel, but Saudi Arabia.
Canada is still in a very privileged position. We’ve let our hard power go to rot – our military no longer has the tools to defend our interests – but we remain one of the world’s largest and richest economies, with the happy geography of being located next to the world’s biggest and most dynamic economy, and linked into a broader economic, cultural and military alliance with the United States and the Europeans.
We have friends and allies. We should cultivate them. In the brave new world, we’re going to need them.