India calls allegations of foreign interference in Canada's elections 'baseless'
The government of India is denying allegations that it interfered in the last two Canadian elections.
Documents from Canada's spy agency, made public at the inquiry looking into foreign interference in Canadian elections, named India and Pakistan as two governments involved in at‐ tempts to influence the 2019 and 2021 votes.
"We strongly reject all such baseless allegations of Indian interference in Cana‐ dian elections," said India's External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaisw‐ al in a statement sent to CBC News by the Indian High Commission in Ottawa on Saturday. The statement closely resembles one made by the Indian government in February.
"It is not Government of India's policy to interfere in democratic processes of oth‐ er countries. In fact, quite on the reverse, it is Canada which has been interfering in our internal affairs. We have been raising this issue regu‐ larly with them. We continue to call on Canada to take ef‐ fective measures to address our core concerns."
The documents from the Canadian Security Intelli‐ gence Service (CSIS) accused India of interference in 2021, when it had "intent to inter‐ fere and likely conducted clandestine activities," includ‐ ing the use of an Indian gov‐ ernment proxy agent in Canada.
WATCH | CSIS says India, Pakistan meddled in past elections:
CSIS alleges that in 2021, the Indian government's for‐ eign interference activities "were centred on a small number of electoral distric‐ ts." The government of India targeted those ridings, CSIS wrote, because there was a perception by India that "a portion of Indo-Canadian voters were sympathetic to the Khalistani movement or pro-Pakistan political stances."
The reports all bear notes of caution about the sum‐ maries being possibly uncor‐ roborated, single-sourced or incomplete. CSIS director David Vigneault told the pub‐ lic inquiry that intelligence is not necessarily fact and it may require further investi‐ gation.
CBC reached out to the High Commission of Pakistan on Friday morning, but has not received a response.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday the gov‐ ernment has continued to take steps to protect Canada from foreign influence in elections.
WATCH | Trudeau re‐ sponds to allegations of In‐ dian, Pakistani interfer‐ ence:
"We have known for many, many years that many different countries take an in‐ terest in engaging in Canadi‐ an institutions and some‐ times influencing, sometimes interfering, in the work of Canadian institutions," he said.
"I can assure people that we will continue to do every‐ thing necessary to prevent interference from whatever country it comes from."
Alleged interference could have multiple goals
Wesley Wark, a senior fel‐ low at the Centre for Interna‐ tional Governance Innova‐ tion, said the intelligence summaries made public by the inquiry suggest the al‐ leged Indian interference would have had two main goals.
"One is that India is inter‐ ested in trying to find ways to kind of support its own mes‐ sage within the Canadian po‐ litical space," he said in an in‐ terview with CBC News.
"But the other, and per‐ haps more worrying, is that the indications are that India has tried to intimidate or suppress voters in diaspora communities - particularly Sikh Canadians - to kind of take them out of the political game if they can, and sort of suppress their voice."
Wark also said it was a big surprise that CSIS was seemingly so concerned about Pakistan that it exe‐ cuted a "threat-reduction measure" in 2019. He said that could encompass a range of actions.
"That could be something as simple as as posting a marked police car outside a known threat actor's resi‐ dence or place of work. It could be something like pro‐ viding information to a for‐ eign diplomat to say, 'Look, we know what you're up to, please stop.'"
Wark said the public knows very little about the threat-reduction measures CSIS has taken since it re‐ ceived the powers to execute them in 2015.