In this episode, the Bureau Chief at the Globe and Mail, Sheel Mohnot, tells the story of how the Indian intelligence agency, CSIS, tried to intervene in the assassination of a Sikh separatist leader in Vancouver, but couldn t.
00:00:28.880But CSIS is concerned, deeply involved in both our electoral politics, our institutions, and perhaps more importantly, like China, they are using and targeting their large diaspora in Canada to interfere.
00:00:44.420And so that when I knew that I had a lot of information on CSIS's blocked efforts to roll up and intervene against these Indian intelligence networks being run out of consulates in Canada.
00:00:58.200And so when Mr. Trudeau dropped his bombshell, seemingly out of nowhere in Parliament, I knew it was time to bring out my evidence from documents that said, indeed, CSIS wanted to move forward with the threat reduction powers, as you recall, given to them by the Harper government, really to target and roll back terrorist networks.
00:01:20.040In this case, CSIS was so concerned that Indian intelligence was so deep into communities in Vancouver that they wanted to intervene, target a diplomat there.
00:01:32.020And it's a long story that I'll make short because I've repeated it over and over again.
00:01:38.320Trudeau's government blocked this intervention because Global Affairs Canada values trade deals, diplomacy, political wins with other governments, in this case, India.
00:01:50.560Other agencies, other departments in Ottawa were worried that this was too politically sensitive for CSIS to dive into Vancouver.
00:01:59.220And also, as you recall, Prime Minister Trudeau's big trip to India was planned for 2018.
00:02:05.320So in a nutshell, CSIS's plan to intervene was blocked in Ottawa and they did nothing in Vancouver.
00:02:11.900So when I heard that now Mr. Trudeau is alleging India has ties to this assassination of a Sikh separatist leader in Vancouver, this was the Sikh community was the one targeted and infiltrated, according to CSIS.
00:02:29.800And so we can ask the fair question, do hostile state activities such as not only spying on Canadians,
00:02:36.940but in this case, allegedly being close to or involved in an assassination, can these activities build up because Justin Trudeau's government hasn't intervened against India and more importantly, China?
00:02:51.040So as you say, there's so much politics involved here.
00:02:53.860But again, I want to stress, this is a story I've now reported at the Bureau after only a few months in operation again and again.
00:03:02.560It refers to the Chinese so-called police stations in Canada.
00:03:05.820Again, Trudeau's government warned since 2015, literally took no action until my stories brought really a lot of this activity to light.
00:03:15.160At least now we're having a debate about it.
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