The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Is India Undermining Canadian Sovereignty?

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

Expulsions of Indian diplomats from Canada renewed concern about incursions from foreign governments into Canada. The Agenda gathers a panel to discuss this break in Indo-Canadian relations. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Canadian government's expulsion of Indian diplomats has renewed concern about incursions from foreign governments into Canada. Joining us now to discuss this break in Indo-Canadian relations, we welcome Janice Stein, the Bellsburg Professor of Conflict Management and founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. Arif Lalani, former Canadian ambassador and Senior Advisor at Strategy Corp. Sanjay Ruparelia, the Jaroslawski Democracy Chair and Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Toronto Metropolitan University. Partha Mohanram, the John H. Watson Chair in Value Investing at the Rotman School of Management and Director of the India Innovation Institute, also at the U of T, and it's good to have you

for around our table tonight for a very timely and concerning discussion. I wanna start from a premise here that Sanjay, to you first, a lot of people hear a lot of stuff about this story, but they may not have the foundation of knowledge to sort of really understand what's going on here. So let's start at first principles. What's this whole thing about? But they may not have the foundation of knowledge to sort of really understand what's going on here.

So let's start at first principles. What's this whole thing about? Well, it began last year when Prime Minister Trudeau in the House of Commons made an allegation, a stunning allegation, that agents of the government of India were involved in the killing of a Khalistani advocate, Mr. Nijer, in June. And developments have happened over the last year and investigations have continued. And it exploded again last week when there were further allegations that not only had this

been a conspiracy, but that it expanded over the last year. In the issue itself, the calisthenic issue goes back decades in Canada, goes back decades in India. It began really in the 1970s. There was an insurgency that built up. It became quite violent by the early 1980s. And the Canadian piece of it, which is really important, is that in 1985, there was the worst terrorist atrocity

in Canadian history. The bombing of the Air India flight came to be. It was a long, drawn-out investigation. Many people thought it was botched. It was eventually concluded that it was Calistanis that were involved in that. And we saw that in 2010 when Bob Rae was appointed to have a special inquiry into what happened and why.

So there's a long, deep history here of fraught relations on this issue. And I would say when it comes to Indo-Canadian relations, which are very diverse and across the board, it's always been the elephant in the room. Elephant in the room in as much as what? The issue that has always concerned successive Indian governments about whether the Canadian government were

taking their concerns seriously. So there's no way excuses to justify what has been alleged to have happened. But this is the issue. And I think it's important for Canadians who are trying to understand the Indian reaction to sort of see this aspect of it, that this insurgency was very violent in India.

It cost tens of thousands of lives. And I think that's something that we really need to To see the analogy with the Quebec separatist movement. I think it's actually quite misleading All right It exploded in the headlines again recently when the Prime Minister expelled a bunch of Indian diplomats from Canada And here was Prime Minister Trudeau going before the microphones to explain why he did it Sheldon if you would the clip, please I think it is obvious that the government of India made a fundamental error

in thinking that they could engage in supporting criminal activity against Canadians here on Canadian soil, whether it be murders or extortion or other violent acts, it is absolutely unacceptable for any country, any democracy that upholds the rule of law. That is why we have taken such significant measures, why the RCMP chose to come out today and disrupt the pattern of Indian diplomats collecting through questionable and illegal means information on Canadian citizens. The Prime Minister looks like he's very carefully searching for the right words here to make

sure he doesn't say anything inappropriate. But how unusual, in your view, Janice, is it for the Canadian government to make these kinds of allegations so publicly? So I think there's two dimensions here which are unusual, Steve. This kind of story is not unusual in international politics. But usually it remains a police matter. And the police are the ones, especially if there, and there is here, some serious concern about the security of Canadian citizens in Canada,

it's perfectly reasonable for the RCMP to come out and make an announcement. In my judgment, that's where it should have stopped. So it's unusual for the prime minister. And if you're going to go higher, there are ministers for that purpose. It's unusual for the prime minister to come out and say it openly. Now, in that clip that you played,

here's the other careful line. Indian officials in Canada participated, look how careful, participated in collecting unusual information. Every embassy I've ever known participates in collecting unusual information. So no news there? Not much news there. Now we don't know the extent of these activities and there's no evidence. They haven't shared the evidence publicly. But the fact that embassy officials, and I would say our embassy officials around the world,

have been known to participate in collecting information. What did you think about the advisability of the prime minister going before the microphones and sort of leading the charge on this? See, I think I completely agree with Janice on this. I think, and just to also echo what Sanjay said, Indians are a little surprised at the so-called evidence. So for it to rise to the level of a prime minister going firstly in front of parliament and making those.

At that point, it wasn't even allegations of, it wasn't even evidence. It was just that we have credible allegations or whatever it was. So the view in India is that this is all political. This is just someone trying to protect his vote bank in marginal constituencies and so on and so forth. I'm not saying the Indian view is correct, but that's the way it's being perceived in India. And even now, when it's a year down the road when this, it's reached a level of evidence, I think people are waiting to see the smoking gun. Where is the evidence? Well, let me ask you about that, Arief. Does the Indian government is its position, we have done nothing wrong here?

Move along everybody. Well, it seems to be their position. You know, I think if you listen to the High Commissioner of India who gave an interview just before he left, I think their position is that we have not been given any evidence. And so I think people are splitting hairs here between what is intelligence and what is evidence and that's a very clear issue. So you want to just help us with that? What's the distinction between intelligence and evidence? Well I mean intelligence is you know varying degrees of information and some

assessment but it certainly is not what you can use in a court of law. It's not really something you would be able to use in an indictment. And then if we look at the United States, as people have compared, you have a very different stage at the moment, right? The Americans have an indictment from the FBI and a legal proceeding to which the Indians do now have to react.

And it's a very different way of approaching it. I mean, I would note that just two weeks ago, I think, the Americans indicted another Indian who they allege is connected to the government. But I didn't see a press conference by President Biden or any cabinet secretaries. So they've handled this in a very you know legal process. Yes, so just on that point I think that's material because I don't I think that conclusion by some Indian officials that this is all political is not testified. I think that's important to clear up when you see the fact that the United States has come out with indictments, as Arif just said,

you need evidence to get indictments from a grand jury. But in other words, we're not the only ones here. That's right. And beyond that, the US government has come out and said to India, we expect you to cooperate with the Canadian government. So there has to be more here than simply a political story. Let me get you on that, Sanjay. Can you imagine a scenario where the Indian government acknowledges something is going on here and agrees to cooperate either

with American or Canadian officials in getting to the bottom of things? Well, I think as Arif and Janice have just said, the crucial difference has been that there's an indictment that's unsealed in a district court in the state of New York. It's legal and law enforcement agencies that have really pushed that in the United States.

The President Biden spokesman, the National Security Advisor, has said in the last year, India must cooperate, and it should cooperate. But I think the way it's been handled, that's a huge difference, right? It's not the top political leader in the most important arena of the country in terms of its democracy making these claims. And of course the other thing of as we know is that the

US, it's an interesting situation here, the US is most important bilateral partner of Canada. It is the most important bilateral partner of India and as we know US intelligence was shared with the Canadians which is what led to those allegations last year. It continues probably to be shared this way. But at the same time, it's been compartmentalized as an issue in the United States, whereas that's why I was saying it's the elephant in the room here. It has, in a sense, suspended all of our relations

in many ways. In the US, they've handled it differently. But there has to be cooperation that takes place. And there's a lot of pressure now coming from the White House on that. Let me pick up the story there. OK, so we've expelled some of their diplomats. They've expelled some of our diplomats.

We are where we are right now, which is where? Where are things at right now between our two countries? Do you mean politically, economically, or trade? In what dimension? Well, let's start politically. I think politically, I think we're just in an impasse right now. And I think when people talk over each other just in an impasse right now.

And I think when people talk over each other, instead of talking to each other, this is what's going to happen. So is nobody talking to each other right now, do you think? Well, they seem to be sharing bobs or extremely, you know, tersely worded press releases. It's almost like a rap battle going on right now, where they're like, you know, how can I diss the other person? Because that's what you're kind of seeing on both sides. So I think in this current environment,

I don't see much talking going on, and they're talking over each other. Okay, but Arif, usually when there's a lot of saber-rattling going on in public, and they exchange nasty press releases and so on, there are mature adults offstage who are engaging in something to try to bring things back on the rails. Do we know if that's happening here? Well look the first challenge is those mature adults,

the ambassadors in each country, have been recalled back to their capitals, right? So I think at the moment we're in that phase where I don't think there's a lot of behind-the- scenes discussions going on, but it is what will have to happen. And I think the challenge over the past year has been, there hasn't been a process. It hasn't been systematic. So what's happened is something happens, and the Canadians or the Indians suggest that we need a chat,

and at what level, et cetera. I think what you need is a process, and it may be dormant for a few weeks, for a few months, but they know that there's a process here. The officials are designated. The levels are designated. Even maybe the venues are designated. And when there are developments, we can just turn to it quickly. But clearly, there needs to be more happening now

on the legal front, right? There is an investigation. Somehow it needs to conclude in some legal action. OK, if the ambassadors have been recalled, who behind the scenes actually is responsible now for leading the charge to get things back on track? I think Arif would add to the story in the same way,

that there are discussions. There are always conversations going on. They're going on right now. Among whom? So there are different levels where this could happen. First of all, there's minister to minister. And there's a relatively good relationship between the two foreign ministers.

So you think they're talking? They have their ways to talk. Secondly, there is a national security advisor in both governments. That's an obvious place to start these kinds. And the reason I say this is these conversations have gone on over the last year at precisely these levels. So I don't think they'll stop, Steve,

because bigger picture here, I don't think either the government, either Prime Minister Modi or Prime Minister Trudeau, but more importantly, the two governments want a disrupted relationship of this nature between India and Canada. Let me get you on that. Let me just add here, this is not a fair world. We are small.

The United States is big. Modi can do this to a smaller country, but he cannot do it to the United States, in part because it's the United States, but in part because the United States went down a legal road and compelled, as you said, Sanjay, an answer. If I could just step in, it's very interesting you mentioned that.

If you look at the difference in the Indian reaction to the Canadian allegations and the American allegations, part of it has to do with the manner in which they were presented, for sure. But part of it just has to do with the relative size and bargaining power of USA versus Canada. And you have to consider that. Arif.

Look, I also think it's interesting in how the Americans have had to make a calculation about India's role in the world. And what I mean by that is the Americans have a lot of grievances with India. This isn't the only one. So on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Indians are one of the largest sanctions busters.

They are probably the largest purchaser of Russian oil. And at the same time, President Biden says that the India-US relationship has never been stronger. So there are a lot of stakes here. And if the Americans cannot get the Indians to budge on issues like Ukraine, I think it's going to be very hard diplomatically for Canada

to get there anytime soon. But Sanjay, again, if we go back to the top levels, Trudeau, Modi, particularly given all the difficulties the current prime minister of Canada is having in his own caucus today. Yes. Do we imagine that he and his advisors are saying to themselves, who's going to pick up the phone first here and try and get this thing back on track? I mean, there is a become a very personal dimension to this.

I mean, this story has many layers. As I said, it goes back decades, certainly in India. The Canadian dimension goes back decades as well. But I think that's what has been very striking about this conflict or this crisis that's now emerged. It goes back at least to 2018, Prime Minister Trudeau's trip to Delhi, which did not go well, and which actually, at that time, the Indian government, including the Chief Minister of Punjab, had met with the prime minister saying that these people were

worried about. We would like them extradited. The Canadian government did not see that admit our tests or the thresholds of what we would think that these people were convicted of some kind of criminal or terrorist activities. Then in 2020, there was a massive farmers movement in India. It was mostly driven by socioeconomic concerns.

There were controversial legislation to liberalize agriculture. But there were a lot of support here because a lot of the farmers in the movement were from Punjab and Haryana, Jat Sikhs. And there was a section of it. It was mostly driven by farmers concerned about agricultural prices and crops and so on. But there was a section of it on Republic Day in 2021, which there was a rally that went to Red Fort,

a very important site in India, and a flag, the Kala Sani flag, was hoisted. And so the government at the time, I think they tried to misrepresent the movement in a sense, but they're saying, look, there are Kalaasanis here again. We're being threatened by this. This is going on in Canada.

And Prime Minister Trudeau at the time, in responding to constituents here, said that they have a right to freedom of expression. The Indian government took umbrage at that and issued a very strongly worded statement, saying you're interfering in our domestic affairs. Well that leads to my next question. Can I just-

Oh, you want to pick up on that? Go ahead. Regarding that, if memory serves me right, I think it was probably a Khalsa flag, which was misinterpreted as the Khalistani flag. The Khalsa being just a symbol of Sikhism in general, but that was represented as the Khalistani flag. But many Indians find it extremely hypocritical for Canada to talk about Indian interference, because they view that as Canadian interference

in Indian politics. Because it was like, why are you commenting on a domestic issue in India pertaining to farmers? You're clearly doing it for the sake of your constituents back here in Canada. That was the question I wanted to get to with Janice. Thank you for leading me nicely there. Justin Trudeau has often made the case that he has more Sikhs in his cabinet

than Modi does in his. That is correct. And so it does, I think, raise a legitimate question. I'll be careful in the way I ask it, but about how much of all of this is wrapped up in domestic Canadian, particularly liberal party politics? Well, so again, let's just take that question to a one level higher, which is India and Canada are both democracies. There is domestic politics in both countries. Secondly, to make the argument that domestic politics don't affect foreign policy,

I don't think you would make it naive. It's. Steve, it's naive to the extreme, frankly. So what do we really mean by interference in democratic politics? That's really the point. If one government makes a comment about something that's going on in another country, you do that in democracies. That is not interference, frankly.

Interference is something very different. It is using assets, financial assets, networks, often covert disinformation. Well, you would acknowledge murder as an interference. Murder is at the highest level of domestic interference that occurs. And that's why I don't think there's any comment, any comparison at all.

It's not even the same ballpark in democratic theory if you make a comment about farmers' demonstrations in India versus putting a contract out on somebody to murder them. And that's where I think Canadians have a point, no matter how irritating the Khalistani issue is to Indians. And there's an absurdity about it. It's a big issue in Sikh politics in Canada.

It's not an issue in Indian politics anymore. There's no supporters, really, to speak of of Khalistan in India. So let's play this through here. If how many parts of Canada? So let's play this through here. How many parts of Canada, I don't even know if you know how many writings, but let's just say how many parts of Canada would this be a significant domestic political issue in? Is it seven?

Is it that few? Well, if you're referring to where six are a large number, I mean, I think you're looking at Brampton, Surrey, and some ridings around there. So it's not much, frankly. It's not much, but elections are decided on a number of votes. So as Jan has said, everyone plays domestic politics. But I think there are a number of pieces on the table, and they're all on the table, and they all need to be dealt with.

And what I mean by that is clearly the Indians, if it's true, have been caught out on an illegal action in our country, right? So that is a piece on the puzzle. But it's also true that the Kalistan movement has a track record of violence and of extreme violence. It's also true that the Canadian government's positions have been that we don't support

violent extremism and we support the territorial integrity of India, as we would expect them to support ours. Now I think the challenge has been not all of that has been addressed at the same time. And so when parts of that are not addressed, it grates on one side or another. So in my experience, when we're trying to get back to a position of talking and trying to have dialogue, each side is going to say, look, you need to show some understanding for our position. And so Canadian prime ministers need to very categorically say,

right, Canadians have the right to freedom of expression and peaceful protest. That's kind of the bare minimum, which is what we've been hearing. The next couple of lines are, and we don't support violent extremism of any kind, and we support India's integrity. Let's add one more piece to the story that Arif is telling.

Because again, there have been very detailed discussions between Indian officials and Canadian officials. And it does come down in part to evidence. We have intelligence that a member, a Canadian member of the Sikh community is conspiring to commit murder, you have to say, where's the evidence? And that evidence is not for it.

Would not meet the criteria. Let me put it this way. The right way to put it is this would not, the evidence that has been shared will not meet the criteria of evidence in a Canadian democracy, in our court system. So for our government to take action, which is what the Indian request is, for our government, any government, to take action against a Canadian citizen who

is in support of Khalistan, they have to have something that goes beyond, I support Khalistan. They have to have some evidence that will stand up in court to get that indictment. Sanjay, let me. And they haven't provided that. Let me erase this with you. We've been talking about this mostly so far

from the Canadian point of view and what our government either wants to or can't do. What about India? What is their motive here? What are they trying to achieve? What are they trying to achieve? As I said, this has been a longstanding issue over successive governments.

As Janice was saying, there is interference and there's interference, as you said. Comments on farmers' rallies can be annoying and irritating to a government in Delhi. This is something quite different. And I think as Janice was just saying right now, that one of the biggest disputes has been exactly that. Well, what counts as evidence, and have you shared it?

It's been really striking. You feel like you're in a surreal world, where the Canadian authorities have said, we have shared the evidence. We shared it at the highest levels. We met in Singapore recently, and the Indian government responses, we have not seen a shred of evidence. What do they mean by that?

Maybe they want to see an indictment by the RCMP in a court. What are they trying to achieve? Part of it, again, maybe it has its own domestic compulsions. Prime Minister Modi is a strongman leader. He's just been re-elected for a third term, but has lost his majority in Parliament. And that sends us something.

They're both minority government suddenly. And again, this is a very emotive issue in India. And the allegations are very serious. So both sides have the backs have stiffened up. And what's been really striking in both countries, as Jan is saying, people are very upset here that this could have taken place. And the allegations prove true.

They're right to be upset. But there's been a closing of ranks. We see it amongst our parties. And we see it in India as well. It's very striking in India that many of the opposition parties that have been very critical of the BJP and many people. That's Modi's party. That's right.

That's a Hindu nationalist party that's governing right now. Many opposition parties have been incredibly critical of this government over the last 10 years, have close ranks on this issue as well. So that's what's also made it hard diplomatically right now. How do you find a through line through here? And I think as Arif was saying, we have to look at some of these issues.

There was a story, I'll just add this, in the summer, it was the best investigative story I've seen in the Canadian media. It was by two reporters in Globe and Mail that said, who is this person who was killed and what links did he have? And they found, as you said, that he had not, according to their investigations, taken part in any violent activities. But he had associated with lots of people who had. And this is where the Indian government says, OK,

so he's linked to atrocities that have happened in India. And he is now here making statements that are really inflammatory. And I think that's the other thing that's been of great concern. The leader of the Sikhs for Justice, the attorney who is a foil plot in the United States. So thank God he was not assassinated. But again, quite inflammatory statements. Just this week,

a video apparently that was reportedly aired saying, this is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Indira Gandhi, which was followed by a terrible program against Sikhs in Delhi. It's a 40th anniversary coming up right now. He said, you shouldn't be flying Air India. Delhi, it's a 40th anniversary coming up right now. He said, you shouldn't be flying Air India. Now, when you make a comment like that, 40 years after a pogrom and assassination of the prime minister, a year before the bombing of the worst

house crossing Canadian soil, I mean, that's got to raise concern in Canada. Would you agree that's advised? Actually, when he was asked about it, he said, no, he was only recommending an economic boycott of Air India. He wasn't saying it, but that was kind of disingenuous. I mean, he says it on the day.

It was as close to a terroristic threat as, you know, can be made. So I think the bigger point is obviously murder for hire in any foreign country is terrible. But the Indian view is that look at the antecedents of these people whom you are speaking on behalf of also. You can't just look at this in vacuum and it's not as though these people didn't have something. It doesn't justify them being murdered, of course, but certainly you have to look at the... But we would never arrest anybody in Canada based on their antecedents. No, but if I can... I agree with Janice.

But I think the challenge here has been we're now all talking about politics. And the reason we're doing that, frankly, is the Canadian prime minister has decided that he wants to lead on this file. If that hadn't been the case, and the RCMP did exactly what it did, had its press conference, if we expelled the diplomats that we had reason to expel, et cetera, I'm not sure that we would be here having this discussion. So I think if it's a legal process, what role

are political leaders supposed to play in that? Normally, you have political leaders pronouncing at the end of an investigation and commenting on what the conclusions have been. So I think, unfortunately, we need to get back on a legal track and do what we need to do, because these are very serious allegations.

Let me circle back to something that we touched on a few minutes ago. When I was asking about the impact of this, you said politically, immigration, economically, trade. We did political. Let's tackle the other ones. What impact will this have on immigration of people from India trying to get to Canada? So I can tell you personal experience at the University of Toronto, at the Rotten School

of Management. Our student body for the MBA program is, I believe, 45% international, and the single largest source of that has been India, and this is true for elite universities like U of T, it's also true for, you know, if you go down the ranks and you go to colleges and stuff, we saw a 50% decline in applications from India last year, and this is before the Canadian government

announced reduction in student visas. It's just that, you know, brand Canada has taken a very big hit in the U S sorry in India. And the other thing I want to mention is there was a very fascinating article in the global mail, I talked about the fact that as Ontario has cut back its funding of universities and colleges, the single largest provider of capital, money to the university

system has been the Indian. Indians have provided something like $3 billion in the last few years, which is as much as Doug Ford has coughed up. Well, actually more. Or more, actually. So if that spigot dries up, and also remember that when the PCs came into Ontario, they announced a 10% tuition freeze and froze our tuition basically at 2015 levels.

And we are running universities right now nine years, nine years of high inflation I might add, right? And the only way many of these universities have balanced their books, and many of them have not, some of them probably are at risk of going under, is on the back of international students mostly from India. You're doing next Monday's show right now. Okay, I'll be back.

This is exactly, go ahead, Harit. So look, let me just build on that. I think the education sector, which technically is an export, right? People come here, but the money is coming from overseas. It's the second largest export Canada has. That's more than auto sales and auto manufacturing just to put it in perspective. And as Partha said, one of the largest contributors to that 30 billion dollar export is India. And then you have China. So it's a problem here for the Canadian economy and I think those are the areas that this relationship breakdown might impact. But I do think other Canadian business, like the pension funds and others,

who are not investing in the relationship but investing in the Indian economy, will continue. So I mean, if you actually was quite interesting, and that's why I say that even this government does not speak with one voice. Literally the day the Prime minister made his announcement, Mary Ing, who's the minister. She's my MP, by the way, in Markham. Right. Who's the minister of trade, came out and reassured her Indian colleagues.

And again, she has varied the relationships in Asia. Reassured her Indian colleagues that this would not in any way complicate their attempts either to do business in Canada or when it imposed constraints on Canadian businesses. And has that been the case? Well it's too soon. But I think again it's about the tone and when the Minister of Trade comes out literally within hours those are messages that our pensions funds matters to our pension funds. I don't think there will be a drop.

I don't think so. I don't think there'll be a drop in FDI. Because they're not dependent on the relationship. They're dependent and they make their decisions on how they feel India is going to do, not how India-Canada is going to do. But the ones that rely on visas, that will matter. And the second one, I think, is Canadian exports,

especially in pulses and grains, need to be careful because you can eventually find other suppliers. So I think there are some areas of vulnerability here. So I completely agree with that. I think the other thing is Canadian pension funds are known to be extremely patient and have long horizons.

So they're looking beyond the next election cycle. And also if you're thinking about trying to get the maximum return for your retirees, you can't ignore the parts of the world where the growth is. You can't be earning high returns if you're ignoring India and China for geopolitical reasons. So thankfully the CPPIBs and the OMERS and the teachers and stuff in the world, they are heavily invested in India, not just the pension funds, but people like Brookfield asset management and stuff on the real estate side, investing a lot in Indian real estate

and so on. I don't think that stuff is going to stop or be held back. But going back to this trade and education right? It's not just the dollars It's also the human capital, you know, we talk about Canada's declining productivity with respect to the US and stuff and You know think about you know, Jeff Hinton just won the Nobel Prize in for artificial intelligence at U of T. Yes, and let's say you have this really bright grad student from one of the IITs who wants

to come and do a PhD in computer science at U of T and he or she is unable to come because you know visa issues or whatever. That won't happen. You know, I think that's where we're getting the story wrong. I think if an Indian student applies, I can tell you from the school that if an Indian student applies, they get their visa and they will come. Our quotas are big enough and we would never signal it anyway. In fact, the messages are either reversed on the university that we want Indian students. It's more what you

talked about earlier, which is brand Canada. There's self-censorship. Exactly. So there are two things going on. Number one, there is less likelihood of them wanting to apply to Canada. They look for greener pastures in the US, the UK, Australia, New Zealand. They're not coming out if the selection goes wrong. I think that problem is going to go away. But the second thing is even if Trump wins,

this is not a problem. This is not a problem. I'm not so sure about that. That's another show. Can I get you actually on TMU? Are you feeling at a Toronto Metropolitan University, feeling the after effects of this chill between our two countries? I haven't detected it in the same way, partly because,

unlike University of Toronto, which has a very high percentage of international students, we have much fewer. But we do have, of course, a large population of students who, by heritage, by birth, by families, and one of them, you know, come from the Indian community. And I think that's something that does concern me is that again in Canada over the last several years we've seen growing tensions between some parts of the Indian diaspora within the Sikh community and some parts of the Hindu community. And that's what concerns me when we talk

about the impact of this. You know, there were acts of vandalism, vis-a-vis Gurdwaras and Mandirs in the last few years. And those are the things that community leaders and people who belong to these diasporas are really concerned about, right? This is the largest diaspora. Yeah, let me get part on that. Let me get part on that. I mean, there tends to be a view that all South Asians

may be painted with the same brush. It's of course not the case. It's a very diverse world like so much else of Canada. Is there, maybe you could just share some of the views in the South Asia, among all of the different South Asian communities as to how this is playing out. So just to echo on what Sanjay said, right? The Indian diaspora, the community, I guess the founding Indian diaspora would have been

largely Sikh and they've been there for a long time, right? But the Indian diaspora in Canada has become way more diverse. So like in my case, I'm from the south of India, I'm a mother tongue-of-stamil. I mean, I happen to speak Hindi because I grew up in the north. But so you have a lot of people coming in, especially in areas like software and so on and so forth, you have a lot of people coming in from the south of India who are culturally very, very different from people of the North. And so in some sense, it's almost like a foreign story to them.

I mean, they've all grown up in India, so they're aware of the Khalistan issue and stuff at a very, very high level, especially those who are slightly older. But this idea that Indians here are a monolith and they all have the same view, and whether it be like supporting a certain party back in India or being of a particular religion or being from a certain part of India and speaking a certain language, eating a certain way,

that's certainly not true. Not to mention Bangladeshis, Sinhalese, Tamils. Just Indians, not South Asians, obviously. If you broaden to South Asians, we are super diverse. Just to add to what Asians. Obviously, if you broaden to South Asians, we are super diverse. And just to add to what Sanjay said, I share the concern that any time you have this kind of issue, and it's not restricted to the Indian community.

Diaspora politics really matter in Canadian foreign policy across every diaspora in this country. And then these tensions refract in to local communities and you and I'm aware of the tensions you're talking about. They're concerning to fellow Canadian citizens who happen to be of Indian descent. Do you know what we have a bit of a tradition here? Janis Stein always gets the last word. That's the way it works. We're plum out of time. Janis Stein from the Wink School of Global Affairs, Sanjay Ruparelia from the Toronto Metropolitan University,

Partha Mohanram from the Rotman School, University of Toronto, Arif Lalani, Strategy Corp, former Canadian ambassador. Thanks everybody for coming into TVO tonight and helping us out with this discussion. Pleasure. Thank you. Thanks, Steve.