Trudeau Brews Toxic Cocktail Against Principal Opposition
Indian and Canadian PMs Narendra Modi and Justin Trudeau
Justine Trudeau Drags Opposition In Anti-India Rhetoric
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, October 17: Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused several leaders of the Opposition, Conservative Party, of being compromised with “foreign interference”. Trudeau in his testimony in the public enquiry on foreign interference dragged the principal Opposition party into the web of allegations against India.
“I have the names of a number of parliamentarians, former parliamentarians and/or candidates in the Conservative Party of Canada who are engaged, or at high risk of, or for whom there is clear intelligence around foreign interference,” the Canadian prime minister said in the testimony.
Pierre Poilievre is the principal rival of Trudeau in the next year’s Canadian elections. Pollsters are betting Poilievre’s Conservative Party to win the elections in Canada in October next year.
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Trudeau’s testimony to the public enquiry went for hours. Trudeau also admitted that Canada lacked “solid evidence” when he first made the statement in the House of Commons last year of the “credible evidences of the involvement of the Indian officials in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar”.
India has said on several occasions that Nijjar, a Sikh separatist, had been killed in a local gang war. Trudeau, this week, went ballistic against India with a press conference to back up his allegations against India on Nijjar’s killing.
CBC reported Trudeau saying that “the names of Liberal parliamentarians and individuals from other parties are on the list of parliamentarians at risk of being compromised by foreign interference”. The Canadian prime minister was replying to Conservative Party lawyer Nando De Luca.
During the public enquiry, Trudeau claimed that he had raised the issue of the killing of Nijjar with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in New Delhi. “I mentioned that there are serious concerns around the killing of Nijjar…Modi asked me to act against those in Canada who speak against India,” Trudeau told the public enquiry.
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The Canadian prime minister expanded the alibi of “freedom of speech” for anti-India elements, saying that “the people in Canada have rights to criticise other and own government”.
India expelled six top-ranking Canadian diplomats this week after the bilateral ties nosedived after fresh volley of allegations by Canada against New Delhi. But targeting of the principal Opposition party by Trudeau has stirred the domestic politics in Canada.
Poilievre challenged Trudeau to release the names of political leaders who have been compromised with foreign interference. “My message to Justin Trudeau: release the names of all MPs that have collaborated with foreign interference,” Poilievre posted on X after the completion of the public enquiry.
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The Gauntlet in a report this week quoted Angus Reid Institute poll which found that only 28 per cent of the electorate in Canada approved of the performance of Trudeau. “Reasons for uncommitted voters steering clear of Trudeau’s Liberal Party include a lack of progress on key issues (48 per cent) and dissatisfaction with the leader himself (31 per cent),” added the Gauntlet in its report.
It also quoted Institute’s ‘Trudeau Tracker’, saying: “Only 28 per cent of Canadians approve of his performance, while 67 per cent disapprove”. Poilievre is building campaign against Trudeau by claiming that “over 62 per cent Canadians faced food insecurity in 2022”.
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