New Delhi: A senior Canadian intelligence official said on Monday (March 24) that India, along with China, has the potential to interfere in the country’s upcoming general elections next month.
Earlier this week, Canada’s new Prime Minister, Mark Carney, called a snap election for April 28.
Carney, a Liberal, took over from Justin Trudeau, who resigned following an internal party revolt as his popularity plummeted.
Carney will face Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, whose party had been the clear favourite for the next elections until Donald Trump took over as US president across the border.
Taunts that Canada ought to be the US’s 51st state and the imposition of tariffs had mobilised Canadians enough to put both parties neck-to-neck, as per opinion polls.
On Monday, the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force held its first weekly briefing about the monitoring of foreign interference during elections and leadership contests.
The chair of the SITE Task Force and interim director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Vanessa Lloyd told reporters in Ottawa security agencies are keeping a close eye on interference activities, particularly by China and India, but also by Pakistan and Iran.
“We have also seen that the government of India has the intent and capability to interfere in Canadian communities and democratic processes, to assert its geopolitical influence,” she said, as reported in Canadian media. “Canadian and Canada-based proxies, as well as contacts in their networks, are increasingly relied on to conduct government of India foreign interference activities.”
China, she said, was likely to use AI tools and also use social media to promote narratives by specifically targeting Chinese communities in Canada.
The warning comes amid ongoing tensions between Canada and India over allegations of foreign interference. The Justin Trudeau-led Canadian government, in September 2023, accused Indian government officials of killing a Canadian citizen, which sent relations into a tailspin.
India had dismissed the charges and also claimed that the issue was the space given to anti-Indian groups in Canada.
Last year, Royal Canadian Mounted Police commissioner Mike Duheme linked Indian government officials to a campaign targeting Canadian citizens.
Six Indian diplomats, including high commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma, were expelled, with India taking reciprocal action, deepening the diplomatic standoff.
A day after the SITE task force briefing, The Globe and Mail published a report citing an unnamed source that the CSIS has alleged that Indian agents and their proxies interfered in the 2022 Conservative leadership race by mobilising support within the South Asian community for Poilievre.
However, the source also stated that they had found no evidence that Poilievre or his inner circle were aware of it.
“But the CSIS assessment did not indicate that this effort was done in a sweeping and highly organised way, the source said,” the report added.
A public inquiry into foreign interference, led by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, identified China and India as the main foreign states attempting to meddle in Canadian domestic affairs.
The report stated: “Intelligence holdings also reveal that a government of India proxy agent may have attempted to clandestinely provide financial support to candidates from three political parties in 2021,” adding that “the source of any such financial contribution could have been unknown to the candidates.”
A report from the Canadian National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians in June last year also alleged that both India and China had interfered in Conservative leadership races, but did not specify whether Poilievre or other candidates were involved.
CSIS spokesperson Lindsay Sloane told The Globe and Mail that the agency had testified during the Hogue inquiry that there was no reason to believe “impacted candidates would have been aware of the alleged support” from India in the 2022 Conservative leadership race.
