India has ordered Canada to withdraw dozens of diplomats from the country, escalating the crisis that erupted when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said New Delhi could be linked to the killing of a Canadian Sikh.
Ottawa has been told by New Delhi that it must repatriate about 40 diplomats by Oct. 10, according to people familiar with the request. One person said India had threatened to remove the diplomatic immunity of diplomats remaining after that date.
The Canadian foreign ministry and the Indian government declined to comment. New Delhi has previously said it wants “parity” in the number and grade of diplomats each country sends to one another.
Canada has several dozen more diplomats at its high commission in New Delhi than India does in Ottawa because the large consular department is needed to serve the relatives of the roughly 1.3 million Canadians of Indian descent.
One person said Canada has 62 diplomats in India and New Delhi has told them to reduce that number by 41.
New Delhi announced a visa ban for Canadians just one day after Trudeau made his bombshell lawsuit on September 18.
The latest move threatens to significantly deepen the crisis that erupted when Trudeau said Ottawa was investigating “credible allegations” that Indian agents may have been behind the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist and Canadian citizen, in a June shooting Was killed on the outskirts of Vancouver.
This will also complicate matters for Trudeau, who is under pressure to act at home while trying to secure support from Western allies who want to develop ties with New Delhi as a bulwark for China.
“Declaring more Canadian diplomats persona non grata would not improve the situation and would make it more difficult to reduce the emotions surrounding this disagreement,” said Peter Boehm, chairman of the Canadian Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
Trudeau’s assertion followed disappointment in Ottawa that weeks of secret diplomacy with India had failed to secure its cooperation in the police investigation into Nijjar’s murder.
The diplomacy included two trips by Canadian national security adviser Jody Thomas to India to discuss the issue ahead of the G20 summit in New Delhi in September. According to people familiar with the meetings, India has not admitted involvement in the killing but has not denied the claim. The Indian government said it had rejected the allegations.
The murder was also the focus of Trudeau’s meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G20 summit, where the Indian side flatly rejected a request for cooperation. In previous meetings, India had even asked Canada to drop the investigation, people familiar with the case say.
India’s Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar said in Washington last week that the alleged assassination was “not consistent with our policy” and accused Canada of supporting Sikh separatists who are pushing for an independent state in India.
Canadian media have reported that Ottawa intercepted conversations with Indian diplomats that hinted at official involvement in the Nijjar shooting last June. India has denied seeing such evidence.
Ottawa can share only limited information with the Indian government, in part to protect the sources and methods used to gather the intelligence, but also to avoid jeopardizing the murder investigation, according to people familiar with the matter.
The restrictions meant that Thomas and other officials visiting India, including Canadian intelligence chief David Vigneault, could only present the evidence orally to their Indian counterparts.
The standoff with India is a problem for Trudeau, whose popularity is waning amid a cost-of-living crisis as his Liberal party prepares for elections before October 2025. Critics accuse Trudeau of trying to accommodate Canada’s sizeable Sikh population and acting hastily.
It’s “not a good time” for the crisis, said one person familiar with his thinking. But Trudeau was forced to make a statement in Parliament ahead of a planned article in The Globe and Mail newspaper and because of the seriousness of the allegations, people familiar with the matter said.
“A Canadian was killed on Canadian soil. This is about sovereignty, so it had to be the Prime Minister [making the statement]said one of the people.
Roland Paris, a foreign policy expert at the University of Ottawa, said the nature of the allegations left Trudeau no choice.
“There’s a feeling in Canada that bad things are happening elsewhere, but this murder has really touched the public consciousness,” Paris said. “This is not something that Canada or Canadians will push aside or forget.”
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Richard Fadden, a former CSIS chief who served as Trudeau’s national security adviser, said he was surprised by the prime minister’s move. “I thought he had to be absolutely sure of the evidence.”
While some Canadian critics were initially disappointed by the reaction of his international allies to his “credible allegations” against India, the tone has changed.
The Financial Times recently reported that President Joe Biden raised Nijjar’s murder with Modi at the G20 summit. Foreign Secretary Antony Blinken last week called on India to cooperate with Canadian police investigations.
David Cohen, U.S. ambassador to Ottawa, also said Canada received information about the killing from the Five Eyes intelligence network, which includes the U.S., Britain, Australia and New Zealand – a statement that will bolster Trudeau’s case.
“I don’t expect the prime minister to back down,” said Boehm, who also warned that India sees Canada as “an easy task.”
“India knows that our ability to retaliate is limited, that we have a minority government and is aware of the resulting politics,” Boehm said. “And of course there are elections coming up in India.”
Vina Nadjibulla, a professor at the University of British Columbia, said the dispute had put Canada and its allies in a “difficult position” and that it was hard to see how Ottawa and New Delhi could calm relations for some time.
“It is hard to imagine anything changing as long as leadership remains the same in both countries,” she said.
Additional reporting by John Reed in New Delhi