Amid diplomatic row between Bharat and Canada, the leader of Opposition
Conservative Party has called for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to provide
“proof” to authenticate his allegations that Bharat agents were potentially connected
to the killing of separatist figure Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Bharat rejected Trudeau’s claim of a “potential link” between the Bharatn
Government agents and the killing of Nijjar in June.
The allegation has triggered a diplomatic row between the two
countries with each expelling a diplomat in a tit-for-tat expulsion move.
Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre had risen in support of the
government when Trudeau made his statement but a day later, on Tuesday, he
asked for more information to back those incendiary claims.
“The Prime Minister needs to come clean with all the facts. We need
to know all the evidence possible so that Canadians can make judgments on
that,” he told the media in Ottawa.
Asked what the consequences could be if the allegations were either
untrue or not credible, he responded with a single word, “Real.”
Poilievre stressed that Trudeau’s briefing to opposition leaders on
Monday only included his remarks in the House of Commons.
“We need to see more facts. The Prime Minister has not provided any
facts. He provided a statement. I will emphasise he didn’t tell me any more in
private than he told Canadians in public so we want to see more information,”
he said.
He compared the Trudeau Government’s lack of action for years over
allegations of Chinese interference in Canadian federal elections to the
alacrity with which it had approached Nijjar’s killing on June 18.
“I find it interesting that he knew about the vast foreign
interference by Beijing for many years; at the same time Beijing kept two
Canadian citizens hostage and he said nothing and he did nothing,” he pointed
out.
Chinese interference was only addressed by the government after a
series of exposes appeared earlier this year in the news outlets the Globe
& Mail and Global News.
In an editorial on the allegation, National Post said, “If it turns
out that Trudeau dropped this metaphorical bomb without having all his ducks in
order, it will be a huge scandal, with massive domestic and geopolitical
ramifications. It’s imperative that Canadians get to see his full hand.”
It also compared Trudeau’s current allegations with the description
of intelligence about Chinese interference as “unreliable”.
Speaking before the House of Commons on Monday, Trudeau said, “Over
the past number of weeks, Canadian security agencies have been actively
pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the
Government of Bharat and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh
Nijjar.”
Trudeau said he communicated Ottawa’s “deep concern” over the
killing of Nijjar to Prime Minister Narendra Modi “in no uncertain terms” when
they meet for a pull aside on the margins of the G20 leaders’ summit in New
Delhi earlier this month.
Nijjar was gunned down in the parking lot of the Guru Nanak Sikh
Gurdwara that he headed in the town of Surrey in the province of British
Columbia.
Nijjar was the principal figure of the secessionist outfit Sikhs
for Justice or SFJ in the province. SFJ had accused Bharat of being behind his
assassination and in fact, has bene conducting a poster campaign in this connection.
