Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, served as Canada’s fifteenth prime minister and had a difficult relationship with India much like his son and now the Canadian PM Justin Trudeau has.
As a result of Justin Trudeau’s embrace of the Khalistani elements in Canada, relations with India deteriorated. His unsupported assertions that India was behind the murder of Khalistani militant Hardeep Singh Nijjar served as the catalyst for the deteriorating relations.
The strained relations between India and Canada actually started with Pierre Trudeau.
However, it wasn’t simply the Khalistani problem; India’s first nuclear explosion for peaceful purposes also contributed to some strained relations. Trudeau Sr was stunned by an explosion.
Unenriched uranium might now be used to produce nuclear energy with the help of the Canada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactor. Developing countries without enrichment facilities, like India, benefited from this. But by lowering the admission threshold, it also made plutonium and nuclear weapons more accessible.
In order to produce Canadian-Indian Reactor, US or CIRUS, a nuclear reactor, the United States and Canada worked together on India’s civil nuclear programme. Under the direction of Homi Jehangir Bhabha and with Canadian assistance, the CIRUS reactor was constructed and put into operation in July 1960.
Then, Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau declared that the programme was for peaceful purposes and that Canada would halt its nuclear cooperation if India conducted a nuclear device test.
According to a Stanford University study, India exploded a nuclear weapon in 1974 at its Pokhran test site using plutonium from the CIRUS reactor, three years after Pierre Trudeau’s visit.
According to India, it was a “peaceful nuclear explosion” and didn’t go against the provisions of the deal with Canada. However, a Columbia University study claims that Pierre Trudeau’s Canada ended all support for India’s nuclear energy development and recalled Canadian employees who were working on another reactor in India.
However, it took years for the nuclear links to unfreeze. During Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Canada for the G20 Summit in 2010, the two nations signed a Nuclear Cooperation Agreement.
But more than only the nuclear test at Pokhran strained ties. The deadliest terror assault against Canadians occurred as a result of Pierre Trudeau’s failure to take action against the Khalistani forces, which dealt a serious blow to Indo-Canadian relations.
Then there were terrorists from Punjab who took refuge in Canada after the crackdown on militancy in the 1980s. One such terrorist was Talwinder Singh Parmar. He fled to Canada after killing two police personnel in Punjab in 1981. Parmar, a member of the Khalistani group Babbar Khalsa, advocated for attacks on Indian diplomatic missions abroad and mass murder.
India asked for Parmar to be extradited, but the Pierre Trudeau administration denied the request. Additionally, even warnings from Indian intelligence agencies remained unheeded.
THe final nail in the coffin was when all 329 people on board Air India Flight 182 (Kanishka), which was traveling from Toronto to London, UK, on June 23, 1985, were killed when a bomb concealed in two luggage detonated. The majority of those killed in the Kanishka bombing were Canadians. Parmar, who Pierre Trudeau protected, was the bombing of Kanishka’s mastermind. In Punjab, he was murdered by police in 1992. Posters honoring Parmar were seen all around Canada in June of this year.
Talwinder Singh Parmar was among those arrested in connection with the Kanishka bombing, but he was all released, and only one person was found guilty.
In 1982, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi complained to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau about the meek Canadian response to the Khalistani challenge, according to Terry Milewski, a retired CBC correspondent and author of “Blood for Blood – Fifty Years of the Global Khalistan Project.”
On Khalistanis, Justin Trudeau’s views are similar to those of his father. Also subject to political pressures is Trudeau Jr. The pro-Khalistani Jagmeet Singh-led New Democratic Party (NDP) supports his government.