Modi sent an agent to target Jagmeet Singh, and Mark Carney does not care
You cannot allow foreign leaders to target your political rivals
There is supposed to be a difference between political rivals, and enemies. The leaders of Canada’s political parties are merely rivals. They all seek influence and power, they each compete with each other for that power and have varying views on how to use it, but ostensibly everyone is working towards the common goal of Canadian interests.
Politicians are not supposed to treat each other like enemies, because an enemy is a threat, something to be removed from society for the sake of safety. And that is not what embodies the spirit of a democratic society, with free and fair elections, and a peaceful transition of power.
When you lose an election, you congratulate the winner, and then every MP or MLA is supposed to go to their legislature and act like adults. You can defeat a rival in an election and remove them from office, but they still get to exist in the world after you do, and they still get to participate in public discourse the same as anyone else.
However, folks, it appears that Mark Carney disagrees.
After the murder of Sikh pro-Khalistan activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, British Columbia, relations between Canada and India became tense, and quite justifiably so.
Trudeau’s government expelled High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma and five other Indian diplomats, declaring them persona non grata, after alleging “irrefutable evidence” that Nijjar’s murder was directed by agents of the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who supports the Hindutva ethnonationalist ideology.
Obviously, we cannot maintain diplomatic relations with a foreign regime that conducts assassinations of Canadian residents, no matter how much money or influence they may have in the global market. Our independence and sovereignty as a country rely upon people being able to speak freely about global affairs without fear of one nation or another sending assassins into Canada to murder them.
So the fact that Mark Carney decided it was appropriate to invite Narendra Modi to the G7 in Canada drew immediate criticism from Canadian Sikhs, who are rightfully afraid of what Modi will do to them if the Canadian government now condones his behaviour.
But the criticism is so vocal that it even comes as open dissent from Liberal MPs Sukh Dhaliwal and Gurbux Saini in B.C., who call it a “damaging thing” and a betrayal of Canadian values. Considering these MPs do not have the protection of the Reform Act, I commend them for criticizing Carney without fear he will remove them from caucus unilaterally.
And in the world’s most frustrating interview, a substitute host on CTV News’ Power Play repeatedly asked Supriya Dwivedi, former senior advisor to former Prime Minister Trudeau, whether trade and money was more important than Canadians being targeted and killed by India.
Dwivedi made an extremely salient point, that the G7 taking place with Modi’s presence on the two-year anniversary of Nijjar’s assassination sends a clear message to Canadian Sikhs that the Carney government does not think of them or consider them.
But with a new exclusive today by Global News journalists Stewart Bell and Mercedes Stephenson, it has been revealed that Modi’s government targeted another Canadian, perhaps Canada’s most prominent Sikh: Jagmeet Singh, the most recent permanent leader of the NDP.
In late 2023, RCMP notified Singh that he had a credible risk to his life, and placed him under police protection, which he no longer has in 2025. The RCMP did not tell him who was behind the threat, but Global reports in their exclusive that Singh was under surveillance by an Indian government agent.
This agent had “intimate knowledge of Singh’s daily routines, travel and family”, and was associated with the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, which is alleged by the RCMP to have participated in the Nijjar assassination.
This makes Mark Carney’s invitation of Narendra Modi to the G7 even more outrageous and egregious. The RCMP determined that foreign agents suspected to be working on Modi’s behalf posed a credible threat to Jagmeet Singh’s life.
By extending this invitation, Carney has told the leaders of the opposition and crossbench parties that he does not care if foreign leaders try to assassinate them, and that indeed he may welcome them with open arms and a smile.
We need to be straightforward here: Canada is not a democracy if the Prime Minister allows foreign leaders to get away with threatening the lives of the Prime Minister’s political rivals. We may put on the clothes of a democracy, but Carney has sent a signal that political battles will not merely be fought with words anymore.
Narendra Modi cannot be allowed to attend the G7 without incident. He must be subjected to massive and inescapable protests from the moment his plane lands on our soil to the moment he flies away, to make the G7 as unproductive and inhospitable to him as possible.
And if Carney is craven enough to go ahead with Modi’s participation? If he is vile enough to ignore Modi’s threats to a political rival, because it’s convenient for his purposes and goals?
Then we should make sure that wherever Carney goes in the years to come, he never lives this down for the rest of his life.