Transcript of How the India-Canada fallout could affect trade and immigration | BBC News

Now, there was a time when India and Canada considered each other a close ally. These pictures show Prime Minister's Trudeau and Modi at more cordial times. But this week, tensions between the two nations, which were already bad, nose-dived. Both India and Canada have now expelled diplomats from their host countries. On Wednesday, Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, had this to say.

As I've said a number of times, we are not looking to provoke or create a fight with India. The Indian government made a horrific mistake in thinking that they could interfere as aggressively as they did in the safety and sovereignty of Canada.

Justin Trudeau there. Well, a lot of the tensions come down to the killing of this man, Hadeep singh Nizha, a Sikh man who was killed in Canada last year. He was part of the Khalishthan Movement, which is advocating for a separate homeland for Sikhs in India, something strongly opposed by the Indian government. Canada's governments accused Indian officials of being involved in that. In a recent statement, India's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Randee Jaisal, said, Canada has presented us no evidence whatsoever in the support of the serious allegations that it's chosen to level against India and Indian diplomats. Meanwhile, in another development today, the US has charged a former Indian intelligence officer, Vikash Yadev, of allegedly directing a foiled plot to murder a prominent Sikh separatist in New York last year. It's the first time the Indian government has been directly implicated in this way. Well, to discuss all those developments, let's speak to Jeff Nankivel, a former Consul General of Canada in Hong Kong, and the CEO of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. Welcome to the program. First of all, where do you see things at the moment? I assume you have more of a Canada perspective on this, but how bad are relations between India and Canada?

There's no question, I think, that they are the worst that they have been in decades. It started this latest situation started over a year ago when Prime Minister Trudeau first rose in Canada's House of Commons in September last year. To level allegations of involvement of agents of the Indian state in the murder of a Canadian citizen in Vancouver in the previous June. But what we had earlier this week on Monday was really an unprecedented scene where we had the head of Canada's National Police, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, in a press conference talking about over 30 individuals who are being arrested and charged with various crimes across Canada related to extortion, intimidation, coercion, and even murder, targeting members of Canada's Indian diaspora community, particularly members of the Sikh faith community.

Jeff, I'm just going to jump in just to zoom out a bit because we don't have a huge amount of time. First of all, on the specific allegations around Nijar, who's on the next year, India says that Canada has presented no evidence. It's important to put that perspective out there as well. But just to say more broadly, because we don't have a huge amount of time, is there any way to walk things back to the place where India and Canada once were, where Things were very cordial between the two. I remember in 2019, Justin Trudeau being the guest of honor as he visited Narendra Modi in India. There were some controversies around that particular trip, but certainly there was a good relationship. Is there any way to walk it back?

Well, there's two different elements to this. I think the relationship between the governments of Prime Minister Modi, Prime Minister Trudeau, it's going to be very difficult to see how those would improve as long as these judicial processes are going on in Canada. So that train is already in motion. But it's important also to remember there is a trade and investment relationship between Canada and India that has continued to grow, not Not rapidly in the last year, but it has continued to grow in spite of the differences between the two governments. So on a society to society level, and when it comes to commerce, it's a different picture. The question now is whether this latest escalation, which has not spilled over into the Trade and Investment Sphere, whether that will happen now with these latest developments. This is something we'll have to see in the coming days.

Okay, Jeff, Jeff Nankevall, thank you very much for joining us and sharing your perspective on those deteriorating relationships between India and Canada.