Trudeau, Modi in same room for first time since Canada publicly accused India of Sikh leader’s assassination

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sat down in the same room as India’s prime minister for the first time since he publicly accused Narendra Modi’s government of involvement in the assassination of a Canadian Sikh activist and Indian nationals were later arrested in B.C. 

Trudeau and Modi were both around the same G7 table in Italy during an outreach session on Friday. India was one of the countries invited to observe this year’s annual summit of the leading advanced democratic economies.

Modi held a series of bilateral meetings with world leaders including British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but does not have a meeting scheduled with Trudeau on Friday, according to Trudeau’s public itinerary. 

The last time Trudeau met with Modi in person was during the fraught G20 summit in India in September 2023. That same month, after returning from the trip, Trudeau rose in the House of Commons and accused India’s government of involvement in the brazen shooting of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. 

Nijjar was brazenly shot and killed by masked gunmen in his pickup truck in June 2023 in the parking lot of a Sikh temple in Surrey, B.C. 

Nijjar was a supporter of a Sikh homeland in the form of an independent Khalistani state. He had been deemed a “terrorist” by India’s government and accused of leading a militant separatist group — which his supporters denied.

“Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India” and Nijjar’s killing, Trudeau said.

Since then, four Indian nationals —  Karan Brar, Kamalpreet Singh, Karanpreet Singh and Amandeep Singh —  were arrested last month and charged in connection with Nijjar’s killing.

Modi’s government has denied any allegations it ordered killings in Canada. Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar originally called Canada’s allegation “absurd” and accused Canada of harbouring violent extremists.

Report warned of India’s political meddling in Canada

The allegations hurt an already shaky bilateral relationship between India and Canada that got even rockier last week. 

A bombshell report written by an all-party committee of Canadian parliamentarians about foreign interference said India is the second biggest foreign threat to Canadian democracy after China. 

The report contained the starkest warnings yet about India’s attempts to meddle in Canadian politics. 

“India seeks to cultivate relationships with a variety of witting and unwitting individuals across Canadian society with the intent of inappropriately exerting India’s influence across all orders of government, particularly to stifle or discredit criticism of the Government of India,” the report said.

The heavily redacted report also said there’s intelligence that suggests “India has an active proxy, who has proactively looked for ways to further India’s interests by monitoring and attempting to influence politicians.”

One note says CSIS has information indicating an Indian proxy claimed to have “repeatedly transferred funds from India to politicians at all levels of government in return for political favours, including raising issues in Parliament.”