is what led to your announcement in the House of Commons in September 2023 over the course of the summer um I was apprised by my intelligence uh Services uh that there was credible intelligence that um agents of the government of India uh were involved in the killing of hard Singh ner um this is something that we had actually asked the intelligence agencies to look into because following the rather high-profile killing uh months before um the initial assessment was oh this was Gang Related or criminal related there was not an obvious immediate inter International Nexus to
this uh and that's how we were briefed after after the meeting after the The Killing In The Days Afters um however hearing directly from a number of our South Asian members of parliament and seeing and talking with members of the South Asian Community around who were quite insistent that it was um something that was likely connected to government of India um we actually asked the intelligence agent agencies and it turned out they were doing this anyway um to look in more closely to the circumstances around this particular murder uh so in U Late July early
August uh I was uh briefed on the fact that there was Intelligence uh from Canada and possibly from five eyes allies that made it fairly clear incredibly clear that uh India was involved in this uh killing agents of the government of India were involved in in the in the killing of a Canadian on Canadian soil this was something that we obviously had to take extremely seriously that violation of sovereignty of the international rule of law with extra judicial killing um in a foreign country in a fellow democracy uh was a massive mistake uh if um
India had indeed done it and we had reasons to believe that they had so our immediate approach was to engage with the government of India to say and we had our various security officials reach out to India and say look there are real concerns that your security agencies were involved uh in the killing of Nar um we need to work on this together because that can't stand we need to make sure that there are changes and there's accountability for this process but let's try and do it in a responsible way that doesn't come and blow
up the relationship between Canada and India and that was the attempts we made in the month of August uh as we approached the end of August and September the big thing that was happening was India was itself hosting uh the leader of the the the summit of the advanced economies of the world the G20 so it was a big moment for India welcoming the world uh all the leaders of the world to uh Delhi for a very important Summit uh and we had the opportunity of making it a very uncomfortable Summit for India if we
went public with these allegations ahead of time we chose not to we chose to continue to work behind the scenes to try and get India to cooperate with us their asks of us was well how much do you know give us the evidence you have on this and our response was well it's within your security agencies you should be looking into uh how much they know you should be engaging oh no no tell us what you know show us the evidence and at that point it was primarily intelligence not hard evidentiary proof uh so we
said well you know let's work together and look into your security services and maybe we can get that done no no no we're not doing that it culminated with a conversation I had with Prime Minister Modi on uh the uh at at after the uh end of the last session at the G20 in Delhi where I sat down and shared um that we knew that they were involved and expressed a real concern around it um he responded with the usual response from him which is that um we have people who are outspoken against the Indian
government living in Canada that he would like to see arrested uh and I tried to explain that freedom of speech and freedom of uh people who come to our country to be Canadians to criticize governments uh overseas is or indeed to criticize a Canadian government is a fundamental freedom of Canada but as always we would work with them on any evidence or any uh uh concerns they have around terrorism or incitement to hate or anything that is uh patently unacceptable in Canada and we have taken action in the past we continue to take action even
as as I emphasize and I have emphasized regularly my position and Canada's position is to defend the territorial integr Integrity of India one India is official Canadian policy and the fact that there are a number of people in Canada who Advocate otherwise does not make it Canadian policy but also does not make it um is not something that is illegal in Canada having done all that um we returned to Canada and it was obvious that the Indian government response particularly through the media uh was to instead attack Canada to attack Canadians um to criticize us
to um undermine our government and our governance uh and quite frankly the Integrity of our democracy combined with the fact that as we approached the end of September um it looked like there was going to be uh media stories detailing some of these allegations that were uh that were getting out there um when on the first day that the house returned I we determined that it was in the interest of Public Safety in Canada to let people know that we knew about these allegations that we were following up on them there was an investigation into
them that was taken on by police services in Canada to ensure that partially to ensure that nobody in in in Canada in any communities felt like they needed to take um action themselves that they should trust Canadian institutions to take this threat seriously and follow up on it and that's exactly what what we then did we launched investigations the Indian response to these allegations and to our um investigations uh was to double down on uh attacks against this government attacks against uh this government's Integrity uh attacks against um Canada in general but also to um
arbitrarily eject dozens of diplomats from Canada from from Canadian diplomats from India on absolutely no cause other than to say well we don't like what you said in in in the house about us and we're g to punish you for that um this was a situation in which we had clear and certainly now even clearer indications that India had violated Canada's sovereignty and their response was to double down and attack Canada further rather than take responsibility or say how can we fix this yes this was a violation of the rule of law and even take
any of the many offering tramps we offered because we don't want to be in this situation of with whom we have deep peopl to people ties and a long history and our fellow democracies but standing up unequivocally for Canadian sovereignty and for the safety of Canadians back then was essential and absolutely led to uh the very very clear um pronouncements we made earlier this week that the RCMP the conclusions and the evidence that the RCMP determined in terms of violence towards Canadians uh that has been uh enabled by and directed by in many cases the
Indian government so you've made reference to the allegations that were the announcement of the RCMP earlier this week and and we know that that wasn't solely connected to the Nar investigation per se it's a broader thing than that and it involves um allegations of interference by India in ex promotion of violent extremism tying agents of the of uh the government of India to homicides violent acts the use of organized crime and interference into Democratic processes so it's a much wider thing and we know that it led to over the past weekend the Ping of of
six Indian diplomats what can you say and you mentioned before that the Hope was not to blow up the relationship with India after Nar murder obviously things have progressed since then what comment are you you were able to offer on on what the RCMP announced on Monday and uh where things stand at the moment um the decision by the RCMP to go forward with that announcement was entirely Anchored In Public Safety um and a goal of disrupting the chain of activities that was resulting in drive by shootings home invasions and uh violent extortion and even
murder uh in uh and across Canada particularly in the South Asian Community um largely sick but not exclusively the sick Community uh the goal of disrupting the chain that was diplomats collecting information on Canadians who are opponents or or or um in disagreement with the Modi government passing along that information to the highest levels within the Indian government and then having that information directed through criminal organizations like the Lawrence bishoy gang um to then result in violence against Canadians on the ground um it was the rcmp's determination that that chain or that sequence that scheme
needed to be disrupted and going public on Monday as they did uh and um removing those therefore removing those diplomats the first option was actually being able to question those diplomats and interview those diplomats by having them wave diplomatic immunity they didn't that's not surprising that they didn't uh Canada wouldn't wave diplomatic immunity in in in in many cases either uh but there therefore we had to um ask them to leave the country okay um and just to be clear when you speak of diplomats collecting information in this instance we're not talking about research and
Google searches we're talking about covert plese covert clandestine uh coercive uh measures uh threatening to withhold family visas uh paying sources um a range of things that the RCMP can detail if if they feel they I mean one of the important things on this is these are ongoing there are ongoing court cases and trials so if the RCMP had its Brothers it wouldn't have revealed any of this it's just that it hit the threshold before it came out naturally in court through our judicial process as it would as it as many of this many of
much of this will but the threat to Public Safety and the need to disrupt preemptively even before the court cases were fully uh fully educated um adjudicated were were uh made it the rcmp's decision to go public with this okay well as you mentioned there are ongoing investigations and and in that sense I think we've probably gone as far as we can go on that topic so we'll move on um we can take the the Nar document down
