Trudeau sought to divert or at least to dilute the impact of reports that not just him but several legislators in his party were acting as pawns of the CCP.
Canada and India are natural allies. Sadly, evidence on the ground makes it clear that the country has been going through a phase of severe misgovernance during the period when Justin Trudeau led the government. Yet the damage is not such that a period of good governance cannot rectify. However, the impact of Trudeau has been substantial. The country he led for so long has witnessed a proliferation of narcotics, with the consequence that several Canadian citizens have succumbed to the temptation of becoming addicts. Another phenomenon not common in the country earlier has become ubiquitous. This is the sprouting of criminal gangs, several engaged in the smuggling of narcotics, murder or blackmail for hire, and in the facilitation of terror in other countries. Such criminals carry out acts of violence not just against each other but sometimes against the general public. Whether it be the healthcare system or the quality of life, Canada was markedly ahead of the United States. Instead of increasing the gap, it is coming closer to the US in undesirable parameters such as gang violence and substance addiction.
In the meantime, after Donald Trump took over as President of the United States on 20 January, the US administration has been narrowing the gap in quality of life between itself and Canada, which President Trump jokingly refers to as the 51st state of the United States. Now that some of the key national security choices of the 47th President of the US have been sworn in, their spotlight is going to be turned towards Canada, the reason being the entry into the US from the Canadian border of elements hostile to the US such as PRC citizens committed to the ideology and directions of the Chinese Communist Party, or extremists from North Africa and parts of Asia. Several who are linked to mass terror and violence in their own countries have been illegally entering the US from the Canadian border, just as they have been from the Mexican border. The new President of Mexico has tightened controls on the flow of illegal migrants into the country and from there to the US, and it is to be hoped that the new Prime Minister of Canada will do the same. Uncontrolled migration is a threat to the security of any country, a fact obvious to those countries where large numbers of such migrants have entered.
In contrast, legal migration into a country is usually beneficial, as they ordinarily bring in skills and talent that would assist the country to progress. Not that Justin Trudeau would care. His attention seems to have been diverted towards the vilification of India within the G-7, principally the US. Since 2023, he has been making the allegation that the Government of India led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been actively sending death squads to Canada. Their purpose, according to Trudeau, is to “kill Canadian citizens on Canadian soil”, a claim he made not just in private communications but in the Canadian Parliament. After releasing such a bombshell, he went about spreading this very falsehood to other countries. So hypercharged was his campaign against India that questions began to be raised about his motive in seeking to wreck friendly relations between the West and India.
Initially, it was thought that domestic political motives may be behind such bluster. However, the fact is that the people of Canada remained scarcely concerned about the fate of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was killed in June 2023 while entering his vehicle. It was clearly a hit job by a rival gang, for Nijjar was active in both the narcotics as well as the terror trade, a fact that became more and more evident as more information on Nijjar’s background and activities surfaced in the media. And yet, Trudeau did not relent in his campaign against India. Rather, he sought to internationalise the smear. It was at that point that doubts began to surface about the motivations of Trudeau. While domestic politics may have played a role in the context of an ongoing investigation into foreign influences on domestic politics in Canada. It was obvious that Trudeau sought to divert or at least to dilute the impact of reports that not just him but several legislators in his party were acting as pawns of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
While the investigation later concluded that China was indeed active in influencing Canadian politics. Oddly, it put some of the blame for such interference on India as well. At the same time, the enquiry commission concluded that as far as the Nijjar killing was concerned, there was no substantive evidence of the hit job having been orchestrated by India. By that time, Trudeau had resigned from the Prime Ministership under pressure from his own Cabinet members, who were concerned that facing the Canadian electorate under the leadership of Trudeau would be a disaster for the Liberal Party. It is possible that the change of guard may result in a turnaround in the popularity of the Liberals, or nevertheless result in a victory for the opposition Conservative Party in the national polls that are scheduled to be held later in the year.
Trudeau must be aware that a rift in relations between the West and India would benefit and therefore delight China, where the CCP has been striving for a long time to ensure just such a rift. While President Joe Biden gave Trudeau a long rope, Donald Trump would not have. Such a situation was preempted by Trudeau resigning as Prime Minister of Canada. The national security choices of President Trump who have taken charge of various agencies will not ignore but will examine in detail the linkages between not just US politicians and the CCP but Canadian politicians as well. The two countries are intertwined in many ways, hence the need for such an investigation. Meanwhile, Trudeau’s efforts at causing an irreparable rift between India and the West, especially the US, have failed. The two sides are coming closer in a multitude of ways. Steps designed for better relations have been taken by India.
The government has agreed to take back any illegal immigrant to the US from India, provided that they are actually citizens of India and not citizens of Pakistan or Bangladesh who are masquerading as Indian nationals. A check of their places of birth as well as location of relatives would separate genuine nationals of India from frauds who are citizens of other countries. As for levying tariffs, the share of the export surplus of India in its trade with the US is puny compared to the nearly $1 trillion surplus of China from its trade with the US. The Trump tariffs ought not to be levied equally on friends and foes, but proportionately on the country with which the US has the highest trade deficit and security challenges. The PRC would need to massively raise its already high level of hidden subsidies on exports, in the process driving the country to bankruptcy. At the same time, friendly countries would benefit, as would the US, by making cost-effective substitutes for Chinese exports to the US.
The 2017 Trump tariffs on China neither caused inflation nor hurt the US economy. The situation would be no different from the imposition of the planned 2025 tariffs on China by President Trump. Unless action be taken now, it would become impossible to rein back the PRC from its objective of displacing the US throughout the world in primacy and influence.