To those saying "But Bill C-18" - it's not the Canadian government taking things down. It's the Indian government, taking down articles and posts that accuse them of assassinating a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil.
C-18 is a problem. We need to deal with it. That's not relevant to the issue at hand.
And to those saying "Well he was a terrorist..." we, in Canada, have something called the Rule of Law. You have to prove someone is guilty, in court, with real evidence. They serve time in prison for their crimes. They can be extradited to other countries to face court there.
If Bhai Hardeep Singh Nijjar was a terrorist, and there was sufficient evidence to convict him, the Indian government should have brought it to the Canadian Government. It's very simple really.
Murdering someone without trial because you don't like their political speech- why, I think there's a word for that.
Look up Omar Khadr [1]. If the United States couldn't get an extradition for that kid, could India get one for Nijjar? I doubt it. Not saying as justification for the alleged actions of the Indian government, not in the slightest. I only suggest that Canada wouldn't necessarily co-operate eagerly.
The guy was brainwashed as a child by his lunatic father and dragged to Afghanistan to resist American's invasion. There was some kind of firefight, he nearly died, and the Americans decided that since he survived he was guilty of all the crimes.
He was 15. A kid. A child soldier, by international law.
He was held for a decade in Guantanamo Bay, a US military facility, without any real trial.
The US already had him. They abused his rights and ignored international law. Why should Canada give him back to them?
Never said that Khadr should've been extradited, he shouldn't have at all and I support the Canadian government decision. But the claims of the Indian government against Nijjar are also dubious which points to the likelihood that any diplomatic transfer was a non-starter.
Of course, the difference here was that the USA attempted a diplomatic process and did not execute a citizen on Canadian soil.
>The Khalistani perpetrators of the worst terrorist act on Canadian soil, second only to 9/11 in deaths, walked free.
>I can't comment on Canada's justice system broadly. But when it comes to holding terrorists accountable, Canada's track record is a joke.
The wikipedia article says the Canadian government spent $130M prosecuting the accused, but was unable to secure a conviction. If these people can't be convicted, isn't the correct course of action "walked free"? I'm not sure what the alternative is here? Should we lock them up anyway? Is there any reason to doubt that their prosecution was botched?
> In his verdict, Justice Ian Josephson cited "unacceptable negligence" by CSIS when hundreds of wiretaps of the suspects and other informants were destroyed.
But that’s just how due process and judicial systems work.
The rule of law made it so you cannot run kangaroo courts when you just personally believe someone is guilty. If the process is failing to prosecute the guilty, the process should be updated with... more laws, which themselves are passed through representative democratic governance. If one outcome is unsatisfactory to you, you can vote for someone who will tear down the system, you can become a prosecutor, you can run campaigns for people who will tear down systems for you, etc.
A party that received 32.62% of the popular vote got 160 seats in the House of Commons, while another party that received 33.74% of the vote got only 119 seats.
A party that received only 7.64% of the votes got 32 seats, while another party that received 17.82% of the vote got only 25 seats.
A party that received 2.33% of the votes got 2 seats, while another party that received 4.94% of the vote got no seats.
With a votes-to-seats situation like that, there are a lot of Canadians who don't have proper representation in the House of Commons, or in some cases, effectively none at all.
It's no surprise that the voter turnout wasn't even 63%; many Canadians are completely disillusioned with how the current system works, and don't feel that any of the parties can offer them meaningful representation.
I don't think there's many democracies that function on a purely national popular vote in allotting seats proportionally. I think maybe Israel does. Hardly disqualifies a country as democratic.
I can't tell whether this is ironic, but, no, it is usually expected that the rule of law requires that the government can't obtain convictions just because it wants them.
> That's exactly it, isn't it? Claiming you have rule of law while being unable to secure prosecutions makes it a farce.
Seems like that's exactly what rule of law should entail: laws so strictly enforced that people can't be prosecuted when the prosecution is botched because doing so would... violate the rule of law.
So if anything, this further reinforces the idea that Canada hews closely to its laws than not.
Quite the opposite. The bar for depriving someone of their freedom through force of law should be very high. Sure, the ideal is that all actual criminals are convicted, and all innocent people are acquitted (or aren't even charged in the first place). But until we have a magical system that can achieve perfection, I would much rather the occasional criminal goes free than an innocent person has their life ruined.
If the prosecution fails to make their case, either through incompetence, or simply being outwitted by the defense, that's life. That's how the system as a whole should function. That is rule of law.
As per your own link, many of the suspects are dead, on the run, in prison for decades (in the case of one suspect that provided testimony against the other perpetrators), or were found to have not had involvement in the plot. Saying the perpetrators "walked free" is a massive distortion at best.
A man’s freedom to live in a liberal democracy is not dependent on his activity’s perceived similarity to crimes committed by other people. It’s determined by the law and the application of justice. The Canadian government guarantees this and the Indian government interfered with this sovereign right as alleged.
Where does Canada stand with regards for her southern neighbor and his proclivity for extrajudicial killings and violations of sovereignty in the name fighting a War on Terror?
And what of the murder of Sikhs that spurred that? Or the murder of muslims in India in general?
This issue is not something we want to be adjudicating. It is not a matter of black and white, good guys and bad guys. If India does not like the guy and wants him charged with terrorism, she needs to go through Canadian courts.
The primary victims and perpetrators of the Khalistani movement in Punjab were fellow Sikhs. The vast majority of Sikhs were killed by Khalistanis during the years of terror.
> the murder of muslims in India in general?
Your accusations do not pan out in any statistics. India is a safer place for Shia Muslims than any non-Iran country in the middle east. India is the only country where Ahmediyyas are not prosecuted.
There is no 'murder of muslims in India in general'. India has communal tensions just as every heterogenous country has communal tensions. But other than uncontrollable riots where both sides are usually injured, Muslims are treated fairly in the Indian system. If anything, India practices affirmative action towards Muslims, allows islamic schools (madaras) and gives them fully independent management rights of all islamic institutions. None of these allowances are extended to the majority population.
Western citizenship being inviolable golden passports for sheltering/weaponizing dissidents of foreign states is not going to be sustainable forever. The west providing sanctuary for enemies of other states is going to end when other states possess power/leverage to do something about it.
When will other states possess the power to do something about it? India doesn't have an expeditionary military, nor are they capable of building one in the next few decades. They can barely manage to defend their homeland and territorial waters.
What's more likely are additional restrictions on international trade and immigration. The great experiment with globalism appears to be winding down and powerful countries are decoupling their economies from each other.
Not everything raises to the level of full military intervention. Bluntly white western countries aren't going to go to bat when their brown/yellow citizens get murdered for diasphora drama. IMO this is more level of aggressive espionage/statecraft. India (and others like PRC) has increasing amount of loyal diasphora to activate to counter dissident disaphora and the cost-benefit seems to be leaning on the side of intervention, whether decoupling dynamic (PRC) or new geopolitical leverage (india).
But ultimately this is effort to moderate west, well smaller countries like Canada (increasingly dependent on Indian immigration) to control what domestic diasphora voices they amplify. Which may very well backfire. Or not - decades of increased PRC immigration + students in Canada was associated with fed gov playing down PRC dissident voices (and still do to some extent). Short of getting rid of problems via extradition - which is political suicide for Canada and won't happen - India limited to raising political cost of associating unfriendly diasphora politics. Canada isn't going to hit immigration targets without playing nice with either India or PRC. So there's no reason not to push, and almost extra reason to. There's likely going to be millions of new Indians in Canada by 2030, India doesn't want dissident elements to organize, and is incentivized to make domestic politics difficult in Canada if they're allowed to.
And Pompeo wanted to whack snowden. The asymmetry is west shelters much more foreign dissidents/criminals, and has more opportunities to weaponize them for foreign policy. Frequently it's deliberate, sometimes it's just happenstance of high immigration. But ultimately, west won't be able to stay clean of diasphora foreign policy drama, especially ones they actively cultivate or fail to suppress. Old legal excuse of, lol no we don't extradite to non-like minded countries, is going to lead to extra legal actions like this.
Whacking Snowden in RU is different tier of drama than whacking a Canadian. Time will tell if this is going to be a significant issue. Hard to imagine FVEY / US not knowing when Canada brought it up during G20 and have this not dominate the G20 narrative.
> Whacking Snowden in RU is different tier of drama than whacking a Canadian
Sure. There isn’t the necessity of a military response here. But it was exceedingly dumb. New Delhi has a rogue security element. I, at the very least, didn’t see that coming. From the indignant response, it appears Delhi didn’t either. That’s concerning.
All those persecuated one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighters etc, political asylum west provides foreign dissidents (or what foreign actors consider dissidents) out of human rights. Frequently they settle in west and move on with their lives. The issue arises when these people organize and create movements or organizations to influence foreign policy of new host country to go against interest of where they fled, or independantly meddle to undermine. Many so far assumed western influence, more or less depending on functional immunity from extradition allows them to operate unmolested. IMO more countries with reach realizing it's fine to meddle in western sovereignty as long as west allows their citizens/diasphora to meddle in theirs under excuse of liberalism/free speech/association etc. And obviously people in "free" societies with right to influence foreign policy, may still, but govs ability to protect them from motivated actors will likely decline.
Every single time anyone posts anything that puts one nation in a bad light, someone comes in with this. Can we please not do this? Your nation will have its chance in the sun too. Hijacking threads like this to say, "well, what about your nation?" is childish to say the absolute least.
Honestly I have come to see the concept of “whataboutism” as harmful because it allows people to engage in extreme double standards while shaming others into supporting any policy no matter how unfair. I have outlined exactly why here, in this post that got a lot comments and upvotes before it was flagged and buried:
It’s like if all humans fart, but then someone points out that we must put someone in jail because they farted. It’s actually extremely appropriate to point to a broader group and say “everybody in that group farts, and it is unreasonable for you to expect zero farting”.
It becomes even worse when a person X who is #34 on the list of worst farting offenders is singled out while the other 33 above them are not mentioned. The anti-X people say “well, you gotta start somewhere”. But they paint targets around the arrow X all day long.
I am not saying everyon who makes a criticism does that, but apples-to-apples comparison and having consistent standards isn’t “whataboutism”.
Well diplomacy is built on quid pro quos and whataboutism so I don’t know what’s childish in this, if anything this comment comes off as pretty naive and childish.
I'm sorry, but no, that is not diplomacy. If you think that is diplomacy, then you're spending a lot of time on tabloids and news headlines and no time where the diplomacy is primarily happening: in stuffy meeting rooms.
This is the behavior of actual children who can't stand to be subjected to critique and deflect with screams and shouts of their own victimhood.
Tomorrow it will be China's debt crisis, and the day after America's latest foreign intervention come to haunt them again but you know what? You can wait your turn. That's the very adult thing to do.
I don't think that the U.S. killing an Egyptian in Afghanistan makes it more OK for India to kill a Canadian in Canada (if that's in fact what they did).
That would have to be a separate discussion. It's obviously not the one we're having here right now.
It was asserted that "in Canada, have something called the Rule of Law".
I don't think that assertion is true based on recent events.
Forced masking was just one of many abuses of government power we saw in Canada very recently. If there actually were rule of law in Canada, as was claimed, then none of those abuses would have happened.
This is unhinged, I'm sorry but that writing categorically cannot be the output of rational thought process. Implementing comprehensive and strong public health protocols during a once-in-a-century pandemic is exactly the type of responsibility government exists for. Right up there with building roads and national defense.
The prime minister put his credibility that of the government on the line. They obviously have evidence and are convinced of this being factual as the price to pay for being wrong will be very steep.
By the way, the word you are looking for would be the same for someone accusing of lying or deception without an iota of proof.
C-18 is a problem. We need to deal with it. That's not relevant to the issue at hand.
And to those saying "Well he was a terrorist..." we, in Canada, have something called the Rule of Law. You have to prove someone is guilty, in court, with real evidence. They serve time in prison for their crimes. They can be extradited to other countries to face court there.
If Bhai Hardeep Singh Nijjar was a terrorist, and there was sufficient evidence to convict him, the Indian government should have brought it to the Canadian Government. It's very simple really.
Murdering someone without trial because you don't like their political speech- why, I think there's a word for that.