Two senior officials from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government admitted they leaked sensitive information about India to the U.S. news outlet The Washington Post. The leaked information focused on explosive allegations that Indian Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah led an assassination plot targeting Sikh separatist leaders on Canadian soil. India immediately denied the accusations, calling them baseless.
On Tuesday, Trudeau’s National Security and Intelligence Adviser Nathalie Drouin and Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister David Morrison testified before a parliamentary panel, openly acknowledging their role in the leak. Morrison shared that a journalist had reached out to him with suspicions, and he confirmed the information. It turns out that this was all part of a larger strategy they devised to get a major U.S. media outlet on Canada’s side in the escalating dispute with India.
This recent leak adds more fuel to a growing diplomatic fire between Canada and India. The tension started last year when Trudeau’s government claimed to have “credible evidence” that Indian agents were involved in the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Sikh separatist leader, in a Vancouver suburb in June 2023. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) alleged earlier this month that Indian diplomats were connected to Nijjar’s killing. The Washington Post broke the leaked details just a day before the RCMP went public with its accusations, accusing India of “widespread violence,” even going as far as calling it a “serious threat to public safety.”
India reacted strongly to the accusations, expelling six Canadian diplomats while Canada responded by expelling six Indian diplomats as well. In the meantime, Drouin and Morrison’s testimony before the Canadian Parliament left many politicians outraged. They revealed that their strategy to leak the information was developed with approval from the Prime Minister’s Office, though Trudeau himself had not given them specific authorization to share it. Drouin assured the panel that only non-classified information was shared and that Canadian opposition leaders received similar briefings.
Opposition lawmakers are not impressed. Conservative MP Raquel Dancho expressed deep concern that Canadians were left in the dark about these explosive details, which only emerged through a U.S. newspaper. “Canadians wouldn’t know unless they were able to read The Washington Post,” she said. “I find it unfair that details were released to them but not provided to Canadians.”
Adding another twist to the story, a report last week in The Globe and Mail linked India not only to Nijjar’s murder but also to the killing of Sikh activist Sukhdool Singh Gill, who was shot in Winnipeg on September 20, 2023, just two days after Trudeau’s statement about India’s alleged involvement in Nijjar’s death. Although no charges have been filed in Gill’s case, Canadian Police Commissioner Mike Duheme recently stated that there’s evidence connecting India to multiple killings of Sikh separatists, though he refrained from disclosing specifics due to ongoing investigations.
The revelation of these leaks has put Trudeau’s government in hot water, raising questions about transparency, Canada’s national security strategy, and the risks of its foreign relations strategy. With tensions still simmering, the diplomatic row between Canada and India shows no signs of cooling down anytime soon.
