IN DEPTH: An unabridged timeline of the Canadian government's many reversals on Indian trans-national repression

SURREY — The federal government’s public position on India’s alleged role in transnational repression and violent criminal activity in Canada has undergone a dramatic shift over the past two years and no one seems to know, or is unable to say, why.Senior federal Canadian policing officials now say they no longer believe the Indian government is linked to ongoing acts of violence on Canadian soil despite earlier statements to the contrary. The reversal has raised questions about what new evidence, if any, prompted the change, as neither the federal government nor the RCMP has publicly identified a specific investigative development explaining the sudden and radical shift..Relations between Canada and India have long been frayed and volatile, going back to the days of Pierre Trudeau. But it was his son and future prime minister, Justin, who would preside over both the most public, bizarre and abrupt ruptures in modern bilateral history.Trudeau’s February 2018 state visit, his first to India, was intended to boost trade and ties.It widely described across Canadian and international media —including the Washington Post, Global News, and National Post — as a “disaster,” “total disaster,” “embarrassing,” “debacle,” and “slow-moving train wreck.”Coverage highlighted the Trudeau family’s elaborate Indian attire, thin substantive outcomes, Modi failing to greet Trudeau upon arrival, and a serious protocol lapse in which a convicted attempted murderer was invited to an official event..But all of that paled in comparison to what was to come next.Years later, on June 18, 2023, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen and president of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, was shot dead by masked gunmen in the temple parking lot. .The brazen killing of a man India had long designated a terrorist and leader of the Khalistan Tiger Force immediately became a flashpoint for all the already uneasy relationship between Ottawa and New Delhi.On September 18, 2023, then-prime minister Justin Trudeau told the House of Commons that Canadian security agencies were pursuing "credible allegations" of a potential link between agents of the Government of India and the killing of Nijjar.It was an audacious claim to make publicly..Relations deteriorated further roughly a month later when, on October 14, 2024, the RCMP publicly alleged it had uncovered evidence linking agents of the Indian government to other homicides, extortion, intimidation and a plethora of other violent criminal activity in Canada. .Ottawa simultaneously expelled six Indian diplomats, saying the move was necessary to disrupt what officials described as a network posing a threat to public safety..Government briefing material prepared for Parliament in early 2025 continued to describe the RCMP as having linked the Government of India with violent criminal activity and foreign interference operations in Canada..And then, in mid-2025, with the election of Mark Carney as Canada's new prime minister, all of that changed — rather suddenly and without any explanation whatsoever.Within months of taking office, the Carney government moved decisively to reset relations with India, which included an eventual 180-degree reversal on its claims regarding Indian trans-national repression.In October 2025, for example, Minister Anita Anand — who had previously served as an advisor to the Canada India Foundation — spoke publicly about a recent meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. .She described the encounter as “quite moving to me emotionally” and referenced historical ties that included Indira Gandhi. The language was warm, personal, and forward-looking and stood in stark contrast to the language of sovereignty violations, credible allegations of state involvement in murder, and “significant threat to public safety” that had defined Canadian official statements only a year earlier..The most consequential public recalibration came from the RCMP itself, however. In a March 2026 interview with CTV News, Commissioner Michael Duheme stated that, based on the criminal investigations then underway, “there are no longer clandestine activities or transnational repression taking place in Canada that is linked to the government of India.” Authorities were “not seeing any connection right now with any foreign entity.”.Only weeks earlier, in February 2026, Indian national Nikhil Gupta had pleaded guilty in a New York federal court to murder-for-hire and related charges in the foiled 2023 plot to assassinate Sikh activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. In his plea, Gupta admitted he had acted at the direction of an Indian government employee, later identified as Vikash Yadav, an intelligence officer associated with India’s Cabinet Secretariat. .The United States, for its own part, continued to treat the case as evidence of state-directed activity. Canada, at almost the same moment, was publicly stepping away from that characterization.Changes of tone by governments following a change of leadership, especially on matters related to diplomacy, are not in themselves unusual.But to move from accusing a foreign government of involvement in extrajudicial killings on Canadian soil — and of directing proxy networks engaged in what amounted to terrorism — to warm ministerial conversations about emotional meetings and the “good old days” in roughly one year, with no public explanation of the new evidence or changed assessment that justified the reversal, remains difficult to fully comprehend..That lack of explanation detonated in public view last winter during a disastrous "extortion town hall" hosted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that erupted into chaos and ended with attendees screaming "shame on you" at both policing officials and the public broadcaster for its unexplained narrative shift..Community members and advocates repeatedly demanded to know what had changed. Why were police still issuing fresh warnings to activists and their families if the threat from Indian state-linked networks had endedWhy had the language of “significant threat to public safety” and proxy networks acting “on behalf of the Indian government” been replaced, almost overnight, with reassurances that no current foreign-government connection existed? No federal official on the panels offered a detailed answer. The gap between the earlier public record and the new official line was left unexplained..The federal government and the RCMP have never publicly reconciled the two positions. The earlier accusations, the diplomat expulsions, the terrorist designation of the Bishnoi gang, and the language of state-directed violence remain on the public record. So does the later insistence that the threat has passed. Between those two poles sits a silence that, for a growing number of Canadians, has become louder than the original charges themselves.

IN DEPTH: An unabridged timeline of the Canadian government's many reversals on Indian trans-national repression

Related Stories

ROBSON: Operation Hard Ball exposes Canada’s ‘reverse foreign interference’ problem

U.S. indictment accuses Indian gang leaders of ordering 2023 assassination of Surrey Sikh activist Nijjar

'Abbotsford man' convicted of second-degree murder in wife’s fatal stabbing days after arriving in Canada

STIRLING: The Bank of Canada is erasing Sir John A. Macdonald — and our history