India still a main perpetrator of interference, espionage in Canada: CSIS

OTTAWA — Canada’s spy agency says India remains one of the main perpetrators of foreign interference and espionage against Canada, contradicting a claim by a senior government official last week that Indian agents are no longer linked to such crimes.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has repeatedly cited the Indian government as one of the main perpetrators of foreign interference and transnational repression in Canada in recent years.

In an email to National Post on Saturday, CSIS spokesperson Eric Balsam confirmed that remains the case, marking the first time a Canadian security agency has contradicted the controversial statement by a senior government official to reporters last week.

“CSIS’s threat assessment of the main perpetrators of foreign interference and espionage against Canada has not changed,” Balsam said in a statement to National Post Saturday.

As recently as Feb. 3, CSIS Director Dan Rogers cited “China, Russia, India and others” as countries the agency has called out for being the most active perpetrators of foreign interference targeting Canada.

The assessment by Canada’s spy agency puts more pressure on Prime Minister Mark Carney, who is set to meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Monday in New Delhi, to clarify if his government believes Indian agents are involved in transnational repression in Canada.

Last Wednesday, during a background briefing for reporters on Carney’s 10-day visit to India, Australia and Japan, a senior government official said that India is no longer interfering in Canadian affairs.

“We’re confident that that activity is not continuing,” the official said of previous allegations the agents of the government of India were linked to many violent crimes or threats in Canada, including the murder of B.C. Sikh-Canadian leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in 2023.

“If we believed that the government of India was actively interfering in the Canadian democratic process, we probably wouldn’t be taking this trip,” adding the official, who was speaking on background and not for attribution.

On Monday, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said she didn’t agree with the official’s comments when asked whether India remains a major perpetrator of foreign interference in Canada.

“The words of the senior official are not words that I personally would use,” she told reporters in New Delhi.

Nevertheless, the Indian government, via its high commissioner in Canada, has quickly seized on the statement to reiterate its claim that it has never carried out transnational repression efforts to suppress critics.

In 2023, then prime minister Justin Trudeau took the unprecedented step of announcing in the House of Commons that Canada had credible evidence linking Indian government agents to Nijjar’s murder.