Gallons of maple syrup won't sweeten relations
livemint.comThere has long existed a liberal elite across the world for whom Canada could do no wrong, especially under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. It was partly on account of his leadership, for example, that Americans put off by Donald Trump began talking about what Indians had been doing for decades: moving to Canada.
Ottawa’s welcome mat for immigrants and effort to diversify the country in various ways, including what can legally be inhaled, gave it a heroic profile well beyond its borders. What these admirers may have taken too long to notice, however, is the Canadian administration’s record on dealing with the real world, the one in which relations with foreign countries cannot be subject to cavalier shake-ups, let alone the sort of rupture we have just seen with India.
By openly talking about “credible allegations" of the Indian government’s involvement in the killing of a Canadian citizen there, dismissed as “absurd" by New Delhi, Trudeau has set off a chain reaction that threatens the interests of both countries by trapping us in mutual hostility. That we are now caught in an avoidable confrontation, with tit-for-tat diplomat expulsions, is a let-down whose costs could pile up unless quick amends are made.
The Canadian PM was referring to a local probe of the 18 June murder in a Vancouver suburb of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was best known for his advocacy of a separate Sikh state called Khalistan. Trudeau did not mention any specific evidence of Indian agents having had a role in it, which suggests that his statement was not just highly premature, it can be viewed in the larger context of bilateral ties stretched thin by a deep divergence over the issue of Sikh separatism.
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