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Both Justin Trudeau and his father, Pierre Trudeau, have been criticised for taking a relatively soft stance on the Khalistani issue
The roots of this political rift can be traced back to Justin Trudeau’s father and ex-Canadian PM Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who also faced challenges in relations with India. File images
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been at loggerheads with India for more than a year now, and the relationship between the two countries has reached a new low after India withdrew its high commissioner and several targeted diplomats from the Maple Leaf country. The decision by the Indian government followed Trudeau’s attempt to involve the Indian high commissioner in an investigation linked to the murder of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. India strongly condemned the allegations, describing them as “fabricated” and “politically motivated”.
The roots of this political rift can be traced back to Justin Trudeau’s father and ex-Canadian PM Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who also faced challenges in relations with India. According to a CBC report in October 2024, after India conducted its nuclear test in 1974, Canada expressed outrage, and the Trudeau administration struggled to reconcile this event with Canada’s commitment to nuclear non-proliferation.
But the real nail in the coffin was hammered by the handling of Khalistani extremists in Canada by the Pierre Trudeau administration between 1980 and 1984. During the 1980s, numerous K-elements sought refuge in Canada, including Talwinder Singh Parmar, a key figure in the Khalistani movement. According to a CBC report in 1985, despite numerous requests for extradition by the Indian government, the Canadian government under Pierre Trudeau did not relent.
The situation escalated with the bombing of Air India flight 182 (Kanishka) on June 23, 1985, which resulted in the deaths of all 329 people (mostly Canadians) on board. The Kanishka bombing was considered the worst single incident of aviation terrorism until the 9/11 attacks in the United States. Talwinder Parmar, who was “protected” by the Trudeau administration, was identified as the mastermind of the Kanishka bombing. Although Parmar was later killed in a gunfight with Punjab police in 1992, he is still considered the architect of the terror attack on Air India 182. Everyone arrested for the Kanishka bombing (including Talwinder Parmar) was let off, and only one person was convicted.
According to a CBC report in August 1984, a French-Canadian named Gerry Boudreault told the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that some Vancouver Sikhs offered him $200,000 in cash to smuggle a bomb onto the Air India flight from Montreal to London.
“This guy met me with a suitcase,’ Boudreault recalled fifteen years later. ‘A Sikh. He opened it up, and there it was, stuffed with $200,000, and all I had to do was put a bomb on an Air India plane. I’d done some bad things in my time, done my time in jail, but putting a bomb on a plane—not me. I went to the police,” said
a Calgary Sun report by Peter Smith from February 14, 1999, quoting Boudreault.
Even after making such a big admission, the Canadian police chose not to trust Boudreault and never did anything about the intelligence. But, a month later, according to a CBC Report in September 1984, a Vancouver man, Harmail Singh Grewal, told CSIS and the RCMP of the same plot.
“In September, 1984, Vancouver liquor store employee Harmail Singh Grewal tried to bargain down his sentence on theft and fraud charges with information to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP about a plot to put a bomb aboard an Air India flight out of Montreal. But the deal fell through after Grewal was dismissed by authorities as ‘unreliable.’ … Grewal told the agents the story of how he and a French-Canadian man had become involved with a group of Sikh militants who wanted to plant a bomb,” said an Ottawa Citizen report by Neil Macdonald and Terry Glavin from September 23, 1987.
According to CBC reporter Terry Milewski, Grewal even said that the original plan included two planes and two bombs. But nothing was done to investigate any of the intelligence by the Trudeau administration.
In June 1985, Paul Besso, a paid RCMP informer, said he recorded Sikhs on Vancouver Island discussing an attack on Air India. Besso told the CBC in September 1987 that he used an RCMP “body pack” to tape conversations with suspected Sikh drug dealers in Port Alberni and Duncan.
This is not the first time that India and Canada have locked horns over the Khalistani issue. The rift goes back to 1982, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi spoke her mind on the subject to Justin Trudeau’s father. According to Terry Milewski in his book Blood for Blood: Fifty Years of the Khalistan Project, in 1982, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi complained to PM Pierre Trudeau that Sikh extremists in Canada were financing and organising terrorist attacks against Indian targets.
Both Justin Trudeau and his father, Pierre Trudeau, have been criticised for taking a relatively soft stance on the Khalistani issue. Now, Justin Trudeau faces growing challenges to his leadership, with calls for a no-confidence motion in the House of Commons. Only time will tell whether his administration will continue the legacy of his father’s approach or take a different direction in addressing this complex issue.