ATWAL AFFAIR STILL A MYSTERY
INDIA ISSUES STERN RESPONSE TO LIBERALS’ CLAIM OF ‘CONSPIRACY’
The sight of Conservative backbencher, Jim Eglinski, rising to ask Justin Trudeau the first question in the House of Commons Wednesday was an unusual deviation from the norm.
The Alberta MP is not one of the Opposition’s great orators. But he is a 40 year RCMP veteran and was one of the first officers on the scene after the shooting of Indian cabinet minister, Malkiat Singh Sidhu, on Vancouver Island in May 1986. (Sidhu survived but was later assassinated in India).
The perpetrator, who was later convicted of attempted murder, was Jaspal Atwal, the man at the centre of a diplomatic storm after being invited, and later un-invited, to a reception attended by Justin Trudeau in New Delhi during his now infamous visit.
Eglinski said he would never forget the day he helped Sidhu and his wife into the ambulance. “It is a reminder that the victims of terrorism have names, have faces and have families,” he said.
Why did the prime minister meet with Atwal, he asked?
Trudeau was momentarily wrongfooted, thanking Eglinski for his service before cobbling together a response that suggested the invitation should never have been issued; that the B.C. MP who had issued the invitation, Randeep Sarai, had apologized; and, that the government was committed to standing against violent extremism.
It was the closest we came to any kind of explanation from the prime minister about the Atwal affair that has become so contentious, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs has now issued a statement denying any involvement by the Indian government, “including the security agencies,” in the presence of the convicted Khalistani separatist at an event hosted by the Canadian High Commissioner in Mumbai, where he was pictured with Trudeau’s wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, or the invitation issued to him for a reception in New Delhi. “Any suggestion to the contrary is baseless and unacceptable,” said spokesperson Raveesh Kumar.
Conservative leader Andrew Scheer said the idea that the Indian government was behind Atwal’s attendance is “bizarre” and has “severely damaged” Canada’s relations with the world’s biggest democracy.
“Will the prime minister produce some kind of proof for his conspiracy theory?” he asked.
The “conspiracy theory” is based on briefings to a number of media outlets, including the National Post, by one of Trudeau’s security advisers last week, in which it was alleged that Atwal was taken off a travel blacklist by the Indian government, with the aim of embarrassing the prime minister for being soft on Sikh extremism.
Trudeau appeared to affirm that interpretation in the House on Tuesday, saying that security officials say things to Canadians “because they know them to be true.”
In response to Scheer’s questions on Wednesday, he did not repeat that line, saying only that he continues to “defend and believe in our professional, non-partisan public service.”
Scheer accused Trudeau of sending out a public servant as a “human shield” to “clear up an embarrassing mess.” He asked how the Prime Minister could possibly blame rogue elements in the Indian government, and Sarai at the same time?
By this stage, Question Period had descended from tragedy into farce, as questions about the India trip received “answers” lauding the previous day’s budget. The Speaker, Geoff Regan, said it was not in his power to enforce any relevancy requirement, which suggests we might as well abolish the whole unseemly travesty.
Having made the allegations, even if indirectly, it was incumbent on the Prime Minister to provide some clarity to Canadians. We’re probably not getting the Indian vote for the vacant seat on the UN Security Council seat in any case.
But the Opposition is also obfuscating the affair for its own partisan purposes. It’s entirely possible to believe the Indian government is active in fighting Sikh extremism in Canada, while accepting Sarai acted independently.
I received a briefing from a senior security source last week (I agreed at the time to protect his anonymity and so will abide by that agreement). He did not allege the Indian government engineered Atwal’s invitations to the events in Mumbai and New Delhi. In fact, he said Sarai was the source of the invitation and either ignored Atwal’s conviction because it was 30 years old, or was unaware of his nefarious past.
But he did suggest Atwal was removed from the blacklist by the Indian government — a fact confirmed by the Times of India and other Indian media which said it happened in July, 2017.
He said Atwal has close links with Indian diplomats in India — in fact, Atwal’s own social media account showed he visited the External Affairs department in New Delhi last summer — and that he has been meeting with diplomats from the consulate in Vancouver.
The reasons for engagement by the Indian government was the belief that the former separatist’s views have evolved. He was allowed back into India as part of the government’s attempts to marginalize pro-Khalistan voices.
But, while the security source did not suggest the Indian authorities had invited Atwal to the two Canadian government receptions, he did say it was convenient for some members of the Indian intelligence service to “stir up controversy” over Canada’s perceived softness on Sikh extremism.
It is still not clear why Sarai put Atwal’s name on the invitation list and he snuck out the back-door after caucus Wednesday.
I usually prefer the cockup explanation to conspiracy, on the grounds that people are not as smart as they like to think they are.
But it seems entirely possible that this is a rare case of both cockup and conspiracy in operation at the same time — the MP made a rookie mistake, but only after Atwal was placed on the board by actors inside the Indian government.