Insights from Terry Milewski, Senior Journalist & Author, on the critical importance for Justin Trudeau to choose his words carefully. The controversy surrounding the Nijjar killing and India has adversely affected his popularity. Can Trudeau recover his standing before the upcoming elections? Tune in to The WHYs & The HOWs with Pankaj Mishra on One India English to find out.
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#JustinTrudeau #TerryMilewski #CanadaPoliticalInsights #LeadershipChallenges #CurrentAffairs
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Bombshell allegations from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
00:04 Canada and India showdown has now escalated.
00:06 Tensions are high between India and Canada.
00:09 Canadians have shown a great deal of interest in this story,
00:14 far more than they have, I mean, in the 38 years since the Penishka bombing.
00:20 Do you know what the Air India bombing was?
00:22 280 of those who died were Canadian citizens.
00:26 It was the worst incident of terrorism in Canadian history.
00:31 It was the worst terrorist attack anywhere until 9/11.
00:35 His time is up. He's had eight years.
00:38 If there's an election next year, it would not be a big surprise if he was swept away.
00:45 Hello there. You're watching One India English.
00:53 And this evening, when we speak to a gentleman from Ottawa in Canada,
00:59 he brings to the table something which not many would know, especially in the context.
01:05 Why so? Because Justin Trudeau making news in India, in Canada, for all the good and bad reasons.
01:12 That's one thing. But secondly, what is coming up is very important for Justin Trudeau,
01:19 for his political party, for his political future and for Canadians as well.
01:24 This time around, as we speak, obviously, India, New Delhi has taken its own stand,
01:31 its own decisions as far as the diplomatic moves are concerned.
01:37 But Terry Milewski, senior journalist and author, Blood for Blood,
01:42 50 years of the Global Khalistan Project, joins us today.
01:46 And Terry has been a retired senior correspondent also with CBC.
01:51 And CBC obviously needs no introduction when it comes to public broadcast in Canada.
01:56 Terry, thank you so much for speaking to One India. Really appreciate your time.
02:01 Thanks for the invitation. I'm looking forward to it.
02:04 Well, Terry, you know, if we just type Justin Trudeau on Google these days,
02:12 not many good introductions would come up. And one particular video is doing rounds,
02:17 is about Justin Trudeau facing a difficult time in public.
02:21 And in your opinion, what is it that is making this freefall for as far as Justin Trudeau's popularity is concerned in Canada?
02:33 A time and a series of missteps. Canadian prime ministers rarely last more than eight or nine years.
02:43 People get tired of them. They're overexposed. They've heard it all.
02:47 They want to hear from somebody different. It's time for a change.
02:51 That is the mood of the country. Before coming on, I just checked the polls.
02:57 He's down again. He's what, 11 points down against the Conservatives.
03:04 It's about, well, it's about 38 to 26 now.
03:08 Those are the top points. And it's he's skating on thin ice politically.
03:14 If there were an election held tomorrow, there's little doubt that the Conservatives would win and not just win,
03:19 but win a majority. Whereas he's now clinging to a minority government.
03:24 So there's that. Time has passed. We've heard all we want to.
03:27 You know, many Canadians just feel we've heard enough of Justin Trudeau.
03:32 It's time for somebody new. And there have been too many scandals, great and small,
03:38 over the past several years where Canadians have simply lost confidence in him and they're looking for change.
03:45 And then there's also the situation which prevails everywhere.
03:52 Problems with the economy, problems with the cost of living, which who are you going to blame?
03:58 You might as well blame the prime minister. And you can argue until you're blue in the face that it's not his fault.
04:04 But that's the job. You get you get the blame for all of that.
04:07 So there's a powerful sense in some that his time is up.
04:13 That's that's the problem. Right. So for a general voter in Canada, obviously, when the voting day comes,
04:22 what are the factors that generally one, I would say, a new voter, if I may, a young voter, would keep in mind choosing its leader?
04:31 Is it the economy? Is it the foreign relations? Is it the safety and security?
04:35 What are the factors that naturally govern Canadian elections?
04:41 Well, I think I mean, more than any of all of the factors you mentioned are certainly factors here as they are anywhere else.
04:47 But there's also simply a sort of herd instinct where you want to vote for a winner.
04:52 You look at the polls and say, oh, this, you know, the prime minister is 12 points behind. Looks like a loser.
04:58 I think I'll go with the other guy. Remember that there isn't a vast gap between the parties in Canada.
05:05 So, for example, it wasn't that big of a stretch when Trudeau won a minority government last time around.
05:12 The former alliance with the left wing NDP party, they're not completely incompatible.
05:16 It's not as though he was forming an alliance with a bunch of communists.
05:20 I mean, so the parties aren't that far apart.
05:24 That generally, you know, if you were asleep during the election and you woke up to find that there was a new conservative government, you might not notice much change.
05:34 You might not notice that Canadian policy has been turned on its head.
05:38 So we all tend, all the parties tend to stay in the center as much as they can.
05:45 This one's a little more to the right. That one's a little more to the left.
05:49 But they tend not to be. Elections don't bring dramatic changes in Canada.
05:54 And I think it's the herd instinct and the sense that I outlined a moment ago that his time is up.
06:01 He's had eight years. If there's an election next year, which is what is expected, that would be his nine.
06:08 Kind of like the last guy, Stephen Harper, had about nine years.
06:13 It would not be a big surprise if he was swept away.
06:18 Right. I'll tell you, that's quite an eye opener for me as well.
06:21 You know, when you talk about, say, new voters, young voters, I mean, we have lots of them.
06:28 Every election, national or provincial elections, we see almost an addition of 100,000 or 200,000 young voters.
06:37 And they are a sizable number here. When it comes to the polity, Canadian polity, the ratings, approval ratings.
06:44 These are some of the factors that at times, you know, in a country like Canada may be counterproductive to someone who is on a skating on a thin ice.
06:57 As you mentioned, in India, it doesn't happen much, though, because because of the sheer number of voters,
07:04 you know, it changes the dynamics as well. And there are other factors at play as well.
07:08 What I wanted to know from you is, again, in Canadian perspective,
07:14 are there any hidden dark horses or some factors that might or might not propel Justin Trudeau's chances in these elections?
07:26 Because remember, his father, again, former president, a prime minister of Canada.
07:31 I mean, he comes from a political family, has age on his side.
07:37 Do you think something or the other could work up in a way to give him some hope there?
07:43 Yeah, things can happen to turn things around. I mean, when I say that if an election were held tomorrow, yes, he would be swept away.
07:53 But it's not tomorrow, is it? And theoretically, he could go not one, but another couple of years if he really wants to push to the very end of the life,
08:03 the full five year life of a parliament, which is considered very risky.
08:08 But it's not impossible, of course, that some triumph could could fall into his hands.
08:14 For example, if it turns out that, yes, although he was vilified, certainly by Indians over this business with the killing of Haji Binija in Surrey, British Columbia,
08:27 for example, imagine that he pulls a rabbit out of the hat. Imagine that he finally says, OK, I've had enough.
08:32 Here's my evidence. And it's conclusive and it's damning. And you're going to have to swallow, swallow your words, you know, saying that I didn't have the goods.
08:41 Yes, I do. Well, that might make a difference. There's all kinds of possibilities that could make a difference.
08:48 Or there could be the famous gaffe. I mean, there are a bit by the opposition parties that happens to when it has it's happened before, as you pointed out,
08:59 for example, with Justin Trudeau's father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
09:04 You may recall that he was booted out and then came back in. The conservatives couldn't hang on.
09:11 They couldn't pass the legislation. They had to have another election.
09:15 This time, Trudeau was swept back. Trudeau Sr., I mean, was swept back into power for a second shot at it.
09:23 Now, that seems unlikely at the moment, but never say never.
09:27 Never say never. Yes, absolutely.
09:30 Terry, you know, one cliche question I would say, what kind of role do you think this whole Niger episode has played out as far as the Canadian sentiments are concerned?
09:42 And when I say Canadian sentiments, well, yes, from from the Indian media point of view,
09:47 from the Indian interest point of view, for those NRIs and expats living in Canada, from their point of view, Niger is a big issue.
09:55 But for the rest of the Canadians, do you believe it is going to have the same resonance,
10:01 what we think it could have as far as elections are concerned?
10:05 Yes, I think it does have some resonance because it makes Canada look bad if we make charges which we can't hold up.
10:15 If we can't back it up, it's an embarrassment to the whole nation.
10:21 And Canadians have shown a great deal of interest in this story, far more than they have.
10:28 I mean, in the 38 years since the Teneshka bombing, the Air India bombing of 1985,
10:36 in all of that time, Canadians have sort of looked the other way.
10:41 It's not a story they want to think about or read about.
10:44 It doesn't reflect well on the nation as a whole.
10:47 We failed in the investigation. We failed to stop the bombing.
10:51 We failed to meet out justice. We'd rather not talk about these failures.
10:55 Thank you very much. But now, because of the Niger case, now everyone's interested and they're looking at it and say,
11:02 well, I didn't pay much attention before. And I know that, you know,
11:05 the people like Terry Malesky have been droning on for 20 years about how there's a threat here that Canada should be paying more attention to.
11:14 And the Indian complaints are in the background. Now I'm listening because of this international furor.
11:21 And they're taking a second look and they're thinking, well, who is this guy, Niger?
11:26 And oh, oh, here's a little video of him praising suicide bombers to the skies.
11:31 He seems to think extrajudicial executions by his gang against the other gang.
11:38 They're fine. So I'm not sorry. I'm not shedding any tears for Mr.
11:43 Niger. Remember that a lot of Canadians are like a lot of Indians who say, well, OK, so if you if you kill a terrorist,
11:52 what am I supposed to be unhappy about that? Good for him.
11:56 And of course, there are principles involved and you can argue until you're blue in the face.
12:00 Sorry. What about Internet? You know, what about the rules? What about sovereignty?
12:04 What about respect for the rule of law? You can't have a world where my country invades,
12:10 you know, sends assassins into your country to get rid of my critics and then then get away with it.
12:16 You know, we don't want to have that kind of a kind of world.
12:19 But there is a powerful sense, like it or not, that a lot of people, the more they learn,
12:26 this is my point, the more they learn about the reality that they've been ignoring low these nearly 40 years,
12:33 the more they learn about it, the more Canadians are paying attention, realizing, you know,
12:38 we haven't done much about this, have we? We've been rebuffing Indian concerns and doing nothing about them for 40 years.
12:47 And now the chickens have come home to roost. We've normalized the display of of propaganda,
12:56 which is basically terrorist propaganda. For example,
13:00 the big Mata posters stuck on the good wall of walls praising and glorifying the Air India bomber,
13:07 the killer posters painting targets on the backs of Indian diplomats,
13:12 the truck going through Brampton, Ontario with a life size diorama depicting and celebrating the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984.
13:23 And all of these things are completely routine in Canada, which amazes most Indians.
13:29 You know, how can you tolerate this? Why don't you do something about it?
13:33 Well, Canada has for all these years done nothing about it.
13:36 If you're asking what difference this makes, this story makes and how it affects Canadians,
13:44 I think it's having a powerful effect. And by the way, I say I cited a moment ago,
13:49 the polling numbers with Trudeau almost 12 points behind that has dropped.
13:55 He's dropped five points in the last month. And his opponent, Mr.
14:00 Polly, even the Conservatives have gone up five and a half points in the last month.
14:05 So don't tell me it's not having an effect. We may have been looking the other way for a long, long time.
14:13 Not anymore. Not anymore. That's what is a word of reassurance also,
14:19 Terry, when it comes to several questions that were raised that why now and why not a long time ago.
14:28 Terry, you know, blood for blood, 50 years of the Global Khalistan Project.
14:34 This is your book, what you have written also. When it comes to Khalistan,
14:41 you know, if you ask generally, it's a thought or it's a space or it's a piece of land,
14:49 because for this generation that, you know, Indians that you deal with or you talk to them,
14:55 they wouldn't know about it. There are several voices that are saying,
14:59 if there is an issue, then why not a Canada or a US or for that matter, a UK gives them that space.
15:07 Do you believe that this notion, in a way, not obviously figuratively only,
15:17 where does this take us? Because your book obviously mentions on the deadly aspect of Khalistani ideology,
15:24 Khalistani thoughts. But as far as honoring them or giving them space is concerned,
15:30 I don't think even Canada is ready for it. No, I mean, the idea, I'm afraid, is basically just that.
15:40 I mean, for most Indians, it's not really just a dream that some people have.
15:47 It's a nightmare. I mean, remember, you know, every family in Punjab,
15:52 remember, you know, has some memory of what it was really like in the 80s and early 90s.
15:57 Not that long ago. Within the lifetime, within the memories of many, many Punjabis,
16:04 the deaths of what, 20, 30,000 people, mostly Sikhs, by the way,
16:09 in an armed insurgency that spilled blood all over the world and especially in Punjab.
16:15 So for those reasons, there's no support for it at all. I mean, it's in India.
16:22 I mean, people in the West don't realize this because there's so much noise about Khalistan.
16:30 And they think that this is something the Sikhs in general want.
16:34 And of course, they don't. And the support is so low.
16:37 I think in the last election last year, the only separatist party running in Punjab got two and a half percent of the vote and no Sikhs.
16:45 And the election before that, they got 0.3 percent of the vote.
16:50 I mean, no doubt none of the above got did better than the separatists.
16:54 It's that bad. Whereas in the diaspora, the dream is alive and they don't see it as a nightmare.
17:02 But I don't think the idea of obtaining some sort of land that has no Sikh holy sites or Sikh heritage in India, in Canada or in the United States, that's not feasible.
17:18 Many people ask that question, though. You're quite right to raise it because people do say, well, why don't you give it?
17:23 You know, Canada's a big country. If you if you love the Khalistanis so much, why don't give them a land somewhere in Canada?
17:30 You've got lots of empty space. Well, it's not a real idea.
17:34 It doesn't contain any memories or heritage for the Sikhs at large.
17:43 Whereas, of course, Punjab does, although some of the most important sites, as you probably know, are not within the land that is being claimed.
17:54 Right. I mean, I'm kind of saying it is only the birthplace of Guru Nanak.
17:59 And no, they're not claiming that. And Lahore, what about the Sikh of the Sikh empire?
18:04 A couple of hundred years ago, they're not claiming that. Why?
18:07 As you know, because it's in Pakistan and without Pakistan, the Khalistan movement probably wouldn't have survived this long at all.
18:15 My next question was only on the intricacies and the experience of experiences for you while, you know, while coming up, while writing the book on Khalistan.
18:30 Well, it's something that has been ticking away for 40 years and about which, as I say,
18:42 Canadians have been ignorant and ignorant by choice.
18:47 It's not that there wasn't lots happening on that file that they could have read about if they wanted to, but they didn't.
18:53 As I've already explained, it's been ticking away under the radar.
18:59 And yet when you look at it and it just so happens that I was the lowly guy on the weekend shift when the plane went down in '85.
19:08 So I was sent to Ireland and covered the bombing.
19:13 Of course, the air India went down in the Atlantic off the Irish coast.
19:19 And then it happened that I covered the entire trial because I was based in Vancouver at the time.
19:24 And then it just happened that I covered the entire judicial inquiry.
19:27 So I sat through about 10 years and hundreds of witnesses, gigabytes of data, and people were simply not interested.
19:36 And I just decided one day, you know what, I don't care if they're not interested.
19:41 But, you know, some records should be made of this.
19:44 It should be made clear to people, you know, what this was, what really happened.
19:48 Do you know, for example, if you ask most Canadians, do you know what the air India bombing was?
19:54 You know, 280 of those who died were Canadian citizens.
19:59 It was the worst incident of terrorism in Canadian history.
20:03 It was the worst terrorist attack anywhere until 9/11.
20:07 And they have no idea. Somebody did a poll before the anniversary, the 38th anniversary this year, in June of this year.
20:16 And they found that eight or nine out of 10 Canadians had no idea what the air India bombing was.
20:23 So I felt a need, firstly, to get this off my desk, as it were.
20:28 Right. And say, look, here's what you haven't been listening to.
20:33 I know you're not going to buy the book, but I don't care. I'm going to write it anyway.
20:38 Here's what you should have been paying attention to.
20:41 Because now, of course, now we're paying the price. All of that indifference, as I said earlier, is coming home to roost.
20:48 Right. Terry, your work hasn't just informed and educated the Canadians in India, too.
20:55 It finds a lot of residents. It finds a lot of, I would say, connect when it comes to that terrible bombing, as you mentioned of the Kanishka.
21:06 Terry, you know, talking about once again, since you mentioned of those days when, you know, the incident happened, you were there in the newsroom.
21:14 How is the media as of now responding to Justin Trudeau, as I believe, like India, Canada, too, would have a divided sort of media.
21:23 One pro Trudeau, one would be anti Trudeau. Is that the case or is it the whole whitewash as of now for Justin Trudeau,
21:33 as far as the media coverage is concerned, as far as the interpretation is concerned?
21:37 Well, the media is, as you suggest, it's a little bit divided.
21:43 There's certainly it's certainly very different from the Indian media.
21:47 Indian media. I mean, I quite often go on network TV shows in India where, you know, it's very jingoistic.
21:55 And, you know, you get questions, you know, why is Trudeau such an idiot?
22:00 And they're bashing Trudeau, running him down, rerunning and rerunning the footage of Trudeau being harassed by a protester in the street who doesn't want to shake his hand.
22:12 Anything to make Trudeau look bad. All very much off the off the point, by the way.
22:17 None of it having to do with the actual issue, which is, did the Modi government or did it not have a hand in the murder of Pardeep Nijar?
22:27 But generally speaking, the I think the media in Canada has, by contrast, been quite balanced, but not very expert.
22:39 For example, at the outset, there was a prevailing theme that a Canadian citizen had been murdered.
22:48 This was terrible and especially terrible if it was by some foreign power.
22:53 And, you know, poor man and our feelings go out to the Nijar family.
22:59 And then that sort of cooled in the days that followed when people started to realize, as I indicated before, that maybe he wasn't the nicest person.
23:10 Maybe he's not the ideal poster boy for our grievance against India, given his record and which by the day becomes worse.
23:20 Does it now we have his own supporters putting up portraits of him with the Kharasthan Tiger Force logo on him, confirming the allegation that he was a member of a terrorist organization, precisely as India alleged in the first place.
23:36 So I think there's been a change. The media has been more balanced than the Indian media, and it has changed, recognizing that now the public is taking a second look at Canada's long and tolerant attitude towards the Khalistanis generally.
23:55 Right.
23:56 On this, I would definitely, you know, when we look at the visuals of both coming from Canada and UK, one thing is clear and having spent some time in the African continent and European continent,
24:08 I myself believe that as far as the treatment to freedom of expression is concerned, quote unquote, depends to what extent it has been taken.
24:20 But yes, that particular aspect is very much there as far as the Canadian polity and the general society in general is concerned.
24:30 One final question that I wanted to know from you is the role of the United States.
24:38 Now, obviously, there are clear, established terms that Canada and the United States are not just neighbors, but also partners.
24:47 And Big Five also came into picture.
24:52 The Five Eyes came into picture with the Intel sharing.
24:56 Do you believe that this Niger episode has the propensity or the gravity or the importance then that it can, you know, cause some sort of dent between US, Canada or between India and the US?
25:13 Is there a possibility? Yeah, it does.
25:15 Yeah, it's it's that it's that potent.
25:17 Yes, I think I think it could.
25:19 And it has already.
25:22 The the the Indians have certainly been trying to exercise their growing and important political muscle they have, of which they have much more than the Canadians, of course.
25:30 And it's vastly. And from the United States point of view, they desperately want to have it both ways.
25:39 They want to keep India in the tent, as it were, the Western alliance as a bulwark against China for strategic reasons.
25:48 And so they don't want to antagonize Mr. Modi by any means at all.
25:52 They want to quietly behind the scenes tell the Canadians, look, you know, we get it.
25:58 We're with you, but we don't want to antagonize India either.
26:03 So they want to have it both ways. And of course, the Indians would very much like it if everyone stood with them against Trudeau.
26:14 The problem is that nobody I mean, you've seen, for example, there are headlines this morning.
26:20 Mr. Trudeau spoke to Rishi Sunak, the prime minister of the UK, who said that we want an investigation and we want to stand up for sovereignty and the rule of law.
26:33 Well, if you decode that, it's pretty easy. You know, from the Canadian point of view.
26:38 Yeah, that's what we wanted to say. Thank you very much.
26:42 And he said that's the Canadian side that he's adopting.
26:45 But Mr. Sunak didn't say, didn't go all the way, did he?
26:50 And say we stand with Canada against India. No, no, no.
26:54 There's none of that. Yeah. So everyone's trying to have it their own way.
26:57 But but if you what you're getting at is, does this have the potential?
27:02 Is it important enough that this could obstruct the general trend where the Western allies are cozying up to India?
27:11 Yes, it could. Yes. And I believe it already has, because people are sitting back and they're saying, hmm, if Trudeau has the goods here,
27:21 we want India to be aware that responsibilities come with being a great power.
27:28 If India wants to be such a great power, then it's going to have to understand that this violates the norms of behavior among us.
27:40 You can go on about it. Well, you you killed Osama bin Laden.
27:44 What about Al Zawahiri? What about Al Zakawi? All of that.
27:48 But this was not in rule of law countries.
27:52 You do this, an act like this in a country which does have the rule of law.
27:58 Well, that's going too far. So there's no way that I can see now that the White House under Joe Biden,
28:07 which, of course, stepped up and said, no, no, no, no, you're wrong.
28:11 Reporting that we somehow failed to support Canada. We're with them.
28:15 We're sharing intelligence. They did emphasize that.
28:18 Yes, they are. I think it is possible that it could at least slow down, put a brake on, rush to embrace Mr. Modi.
28:30 And that from the point of view, if there is a united point of view among the Western allies,
28:36 it is that this is a step too far and you need to step back from this kind of behavior.
28:41 We won't tolerate it in the United States. We won't tolerate it in the UK.
28:46 So you better speak to your people. I tell them no more, no more of this.
28:51 So that was Terry Millefsky speaking to One India News about the ongoing situation between India and Canada.
28:59 Why and how the popularity of Justin Trudeau, the current prime minister of Canada, is dwindling.
29:06 And if he faces elections, there's chances that he might not be able to make it.
29:12 Thanks for watching the broadcast.