Trudeau needs to own India fiasco

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seems oblivious to the old admonition about what to do when you are in a hole. For some reason, he just keeps digging.

In 1986, Jaspal Atwal was convicted of attempted murder for trying to kill an Indian state cabinet minister who was visiting Vancouver Island.

Despite that history, Atwal got invited to hob and nob with Trudeau and Indian officials during the prime minister’s trip to India last month, until the light went on and he was dropped.

All that is bad enough, and B.C. Liberal MP Randeep Sarai has taken responsibility for giving out the invitation.

But then Trudeau made it worse by trotting out an unnamed government official to claim that rogue elements in India had been responsible for orchestrating the whole scandal to make the Canadians look bad.

When many rational people scoffed at the suggestion, the government doubled down by maintaining their confidence in the official, now identified as national security adviser Daniel Jean.

However, now Trudeau won’t let Jean explain because it’s all very classified stuff. This is preposterous. Instead of hanging a dedicated public servant out to dry, the government should focus on what went wrong with the vetting process and fix it so it doesn’t happen again.