Juno News - Can Canada fix its relationship with India？ (ft. Vivek Dehejia)

00:00:00.000 so what exactly is going on here why is this relationship which when harper was prime minister

00:00:13.260 was quite a strong one between canada and india soured and cooled so much i want to bring into

00:00:18.820 the show here uh professor vivek dehezia who is a professor with carlton university and joins me

00:00:24.800 now uh professor good to talk to you thanks for coming on today hi andrew great to be on the show

00:00:30.540 so let's just first off talk about whether this is something that we can squarely lay at trudeau

00:00:37.140 because it seems like there has been a night and day difference between the canada india relationship

00:00:42.020 when harper was there versus when trudeau was there but has there been some context that's not

00:00:46.960 related to this change in power that i'm missing well i think that is the crucial difference uh

00:00:54.120 you know canada india relations really reached a high point uh when stephen harper and mr modi were

00:01:00.520 you know both in power in their respective countries that was only about a year

00:01:04.100 or so i guess of overlap uh but for various reasons you know and i've i've written about this harper and

00:01:11.800 modi had a real rapport they had a real camaraderie you know they're both sort of grassroots conservatives

00:01:18.560 uh they both had to sort of fight their way through the establishment to get to where they

00:01:23.300 were and harper also courted modi assiduously even when he was chief minister of gujarat

00:01:30.280 he set up a trade office there so he did everything to signal to india and to modi that canada took

00:01:37.880 india seriously and wanted to partner with india in an important way and we've gotten entirely the

00:01:42.940 opposite signals from from the current prime minister you know he's always playing to the

00:01:48.340 domestic diaspora uh let's face it c canadians have been loyal liberal voters and they are

00:01:56.440 concentrated in key writings in greater toronto and vancouver so even though their total numbers may

00:02:01.660 not seem large they are consequential uh and i think it's just honestly shamelessly playing to

00:02:08.560 the diaspora vote votes back home back here in canada i know it's a very complicated issue to

00:02:14.960 distill down into a generalization here but when trudeau is talking about you know what what that

00:02:21.700 presenter i i played the clip from is sort of denouncing as his comments on on calistan is that

00:02:27.260 something that would be applicable to all sikhs or is there a division in canada on where they stand on

00:02:32.260 on that issue oh no certainly there is um you know no one would suggest and i'm not suggesting

00:02:37.820 that all sikh canadians um you know support calistan we don't really have any accurate

00:02:44.980 data on this obviously no one is going to fess up that hey i support you know india being broken up

00:02:50.500 and having a separate state for sikhs uh but we do know that there is at least a significant minority

00:02:56.120 vocal minority of sikh extremists who are strong supporters of calistan they took out a float

00:03:02.100 a big parade a few months ago which portrayed uh the killing of mrs gandhi the prime minister in

00:03:08.840 1984 she was assassinated by two of her of her sikh bodyguards and that float appeared to you know i did

00:03:15.720 not see that float but from all reports appeared to to glorify that it said revenge there was a sign

00:03:21.200 saying revenge behind it uh and that you know india did not take kindly to that uh so you know this

00:03:28.760 the the summit really kind of summarized everything that's gone wrong that trudeau has prioritized

00:03:36.240 domestic diaspora politics and he's not taking the big picture view andrew i mean india uh look at the

00:03:43.000 fact that in the u.s whatever you know trump and biden are different in 99 of the ways that you know

00:03:50.060 they could be different but in one important way uh the turn towards india biden has kept to the trump

00:03:56.540 playbook uh biden uh although you know he's very much progressive on the left and so on different

00:04:02.980 from trump different from modi uh had a big state visit for modi this past summer uh he spoke to

00:04:10.120 congress for the second time sort of really you know gave him the red carpet treatment um and you

00:04:16.800 know in return trudeau uh skipping the leader's dinner was was in very poor taste uh you know that

00:04:24.620 honestly his presence there was so minuscule was so minor that he ought to have just zoomed in you

00:04:31.440 know had a zoom call would have saved us all some some some money as taxpayers and saved himself the

00:04:37.680 grief of being stuck there on the ground you know for two nights on the ground when he talks about you

00:04:43.380 know the right to freedom of protest and again that news x clip i found was quite interesting in bringing

00:04:48.220 up the freedom convoy and just the you know the way that you know indian people would look at

00:04:52.400 justin trudeau's uh treatment of canadian protesters in that and i i don't want to draw a false equivalence

00:04:58.140 but but when he makes those comments it is very much like he's meddling in india's domestic politics

00:05:05.720 is it not well that's how it was seen andrew in india the external affairs ministry was very stern

00:05:11.360 saying look you know we don't comment on your internal politics in canada please don't meddle

00:05:15.800 uh with what what they're doing and you know there is a certain irony uh you know a certain hypocrisy a

00:05:25.780 double standard so you know for the context uh there were uh protesters uh jamming up the highways

00:05:33.540 leading to delhi for almost a year you know for months on end uh protesting farm reforms which were you

00:05:40.400 know would have been good for the economy uh and the government in india did not crack down on them

00:05:46.620 uh and in fact they finally caved into some of some of the farmers demands now these were mostly

00:05:51.420 seek punjabis um and so when you know uh india's gets this talking to from from trudeau and then

00:06:01.100 two years later uh trudeau cracks down hard using draconian emergency powers never used you know except

00:06:08.060 by his father except in wartime uh on on peaceful protests uh after what two weeks or so you know in

00:06:15.980 the nation's capital that contrast was very striking and people didn't fail to see that that difference

00:06:22.180 that he was kind of preaching you've got to reach out to the protesters talk to them something that he

00:06:28.100 didn't do himself so so that was that was very dissonant and very jarring for for lots of people i i never

00:06:34.300 want to you know let one person speak for an entire country i mean whenever canadian conservatives have

00:06:40.180 seen you know people in the indian press comment on trudeau they all love the clips and and i mean i i

00:06:45.780 don't know if that's an accurate representation of where indian discourse is you know for example

00:06:50.040 like someone in india could take a clip of my show and say look at what canadians are saying but you

00:06:54.580 know i would as much as i would love to speak for the country i don't but i'm curious in this case

00:06:58.700 how much those comments that we hear are speaking for a pretty broad sentiment well i think they are

00:07:06.060 and what's really sad here uh also andrew is that trudeau actually had a very popular image in india

00:07:13.100 when he came to power you know he was young he was charismatic uh he he seemed to really resonate

00:07:18.500 with young people all over the world he was in the news you know he was sort of uh the new exciting

00:07:23.300 kid on the block and so people were willing to uh to embrace him you know as an interesting new

00:07:29.540 canadian leader young and maybe bringing a fresh approach but all of that really evaporated in 2018

00:07:35.200 with that disastrous visit i saw the the package that you you started with which was really more

00:07:40.160 like like a bollywood trunk show than it was a state visit uh nothing was accomplished um and there

00:07:47.380 was gaffe after gaffe uh the last one that really put it off the rails was when a convicted uh khalasani

00:07:54.160 terrorist was invited to the official high commissioner dinner that you know private reception that trudeau

00:07:59.320 hosted and photographed with you know uh with sophie and and so on and was all very very embarrassing for

00:08:06.360 canada um and the indians you know did not take kindly to that uh that that someone like that got on the

00:08:13.600 official guest list for for the prime minister's private reception to close to to close that week

00:08:19.020 there it was really really very embarrassing and people did not you know fail to see that uh what

00:08:25.580 what what message that sent yeah and i would also add i mean it's impossible to live up to the level of

00:08:32.060 incompetence and blundering on that particular trip i mean this one has been a cakewalk compared to that

00:08:37.260 although you know throwing in airplane malfunctions was uh you know a nice little feather in the cap here but

00:08:42.900 the one interesting aspect of this and you mentioned the diaspora earlier canada and india are linked

00:08:49.420 more than a lot of other countries in terms of population and you know for example like i've

00:08:54.180 talked to uh so many people that literally just live their lives between the two countries because

00:08:58.900 they've got families there people that are going to weddings back and forth if you've ever gotten on

00:09:03.960 a plane at pearson next to the uh flight that's going from toronto to delhi you'll notice just how many

00:09:08.860 people there are there that are very linked between these two countries and uh you know the one thing

00:09:13.180 i i've gotten the sense of is that a lot of indian canadians keep very close ties to uh india because

00:09:19.240 they have family there maybe they still have work commitments there so these two countries should be

00:09:25.140 getting along and i'm wondering what it would take to salvage that because at this point if there's not

00:09:31.000 even a basic respect for the canadian prime minister in india which it sounds like is the case

00:09:36.140 is this relationship literally on ice until there's a new government in canada or a new government in

00:09:41.460 india i'm afraid so in fact i i don't think that really there's any way at this point you know we've

00:09:47.060 gone from a deep freeze to the arctic tundra here uh it you know in terms of where we're at and really

00:09:53.100 you know as you put it correctly you know if modi loses next year or tuto loses you know whenever

00:09:57.880 uh and there's there's a new prime minister at either end uh we you know there could be a could be sort of a

00:10:03.820 uh a chance to to jump start uh canada india but really it's completely stuck now um and again

00:10:12.740 it's really really disappointing that because trudeau's own foreign foreign policy manifesto

00:10:19.020 this indo-pacific strategy called for reaching out to india now you mentioned the diaspora and i wanted

00:10:24.560 to say one word about that if i may andrew please um you know both the u.s and canada have large indian

00:10:30.780 diasporas but there is a difference uh this is something that people don't often always acknowledge

00:10:36.940 uh there are major fissures you know major cleavages in the diaspora here in canada

00:10:43.140 um because there is a large percentage who are c canadians as i say you know a small minority but a

00:10:53.120 small but vocal minority still harbor hopes of khalistan this uh independent homeland for the

00:11:00.160 sikhs uh that led to a spate of terrorism in india in the 80s the killing of the prime minister

00:11:05.560 uh and so unfortunately uh that group of people is intrinsically going to be very very negative

00:11:16.240 towards india uh and i think that colors the diaspora relationship i mean they they go back

00:11:22.980 and forth but i don't think that all of them i'm not talking about all of them but some of them

00:11:26.980 don't like the indian government uh for what they perceive as the crackdown on on on you know on

00:11:33.560 sikhs in punjab uh as they see it whereas the american diaspora indo-americans for the most part

00:11:40.400 are really gung-ho about what's going on back where you know back back where they came from

00:11:46.020 and so for example biden or trump or whoever doesn't have to play this game of you know i've

00:11:50.740 got to say one thing to the sikh diaspora in back in canada say something else to to modi uh their

00:11:57.040 hands are much freer we but so uh it's hard to explain this you know these they aren't sort of

00:12:04.800 monolithic blocks these diasporas they're made up of lots of different groups of people with lots of

00:12:09.400 different views um and somehow and for some reason the diaspora in canada has not really played the

00:12:17.420 role that it could have or it should have uh to really uh lead to a tighter embrace with india

00:12:24.000 it's not happened is that not in some way a consequence of canada like the specific canadian

00:12:30.480 interpretation of of multiculturalism because it seems like in other contexts as well we import

00:12:35.680 these cleavages and these issues that are not settled in the homelands but we add basically

00:12:41.080 another arena for these battles well that's absolutely true uh i mean i mean so so indo-americans 0.99

00:12:47.900 are our first americans and then they came from india so there's a basic there's a basic unifying

00:12:54.300 factor there now of course they have major cleavages politically you know red versus blue trump 1.00

00:12:59.900 versus biden and so on but they're fundamentally all they all agree that we are americans first

00:13:05.940 um and in canada there seems to be this fracturing uh you know given our multicultural model which

00:13:14.060 certainly has its strengths but it has led to to a fragmenting of a larger canadian sense uh that

00:13:20.380 people have that look i'm a canadian first i'm here and i care about what's going on where i was born

00:13:25.120 obviously but uh let's not import those grievances from back home because this is how this is our

00:13:32.400 home now so let's focus on what we can do together here in canada last question vivek uh india had

00:13:38.960 offered a plane that apparently the canadian government never took them up on the offer on

00:13:43.380 to help trudeau get home do you think they were being hospitable or do you think they wanted to get

00:13:46.960 rid of him i saw that that news i mean maybe a bit of both i mean i can understand why trudeau didn't

00:13:53.480 accept the offer i'm sure they would have all kinds of bugs on board to record the conversations

00:13:58.120 uh so to know what he really thought uh of of what happened in india but you know it's i guess it was

00:14:04.480 sort of rubbing it in you know a g7 country has a leader whose home he can't live in official 0.74

00:14:10.020 residence you know unsafe to live in and your plane doesn't take off i mean it's you know really for

00:14:15.920 canada this is such you know such terrible pr such terrible you know people see this stuff

00:14:21.060 that yeah you this is what the prime minister of canada his plane doesn't take off and and he's

00:14:27.140 sort of basically camping out you know on the grounds of reto hall yeah i should uh i remember

00:14:32.600 the indignation when pierre polyev the conservative leader said canada is broken and justin trudeau

00:14:37.460 gets up there and says you know canada is not broken just like everything in canada apparently even

00:14:41.900 that he needs and uses his uh professor vivek de heji of carlton university great to have you on

00:14:47.200 the show at last thanks so much for coming on today thank you so much andrew thanks for listening

00:14:51.420 to the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - September 17, 2023

Can Canada fix its relationship with India？ (ft. Vivek Dehejia)

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript