By Peter O’Neil, Vancouver Sun | Link to Article
Canada apologized to India in 2011 after a ministerial inquiry confirmed that military personnel had participated in a Remembrance Day event at a Surrey Sikh temple that “glorified terrorists.”
By Peter O’Neil, Vancouver Sun | Link to Article
Canada apologized to India in 2011 after a ministerial inquiry confirmed that military personnel had participated in a Remembrance Day event at a Surrey Sikh temple that “glorified terrorists.”
At the event, according to internal documents, the Punjabi-speaking officer now running to become a Liberal MP warned his colleagues not to let themselves be photographed near posters of “martyrs” of the movement to create an independent Sikh state called Khalistan out of the Punjab area in India.
That officer, Lt.-Col. Harjit Singh Sajjan, was acclaimed Friday as Justin Trudeau’s Liberal candidate in Vancouver South and has been criticized in recent days by some critics of the Khalistan movement in Canada for attending the 2011 event.
However the internal document show that Sajjan was ordered to attend the event.
Internal correspondence from 2012 indicates Prime Minister Stephen Harper acknowledged that government officials and MPs were playing with fire attending events like the Remembrance Day ceremony and the annual Vaisakhi parade in Surrey, where some floats have included posters of Sikh radicals.
The government “must adopt a much more rigorous process for screening event invitations,” Harper wrote to a Conservative MP who had complained about government representatives being compromised.
The revelation that Canada apologized to India, which according to one expert underscores a risk of trying to win support in immigrant communities, was contained in a Dec. 8, 2011 email from Harper’s office.
It was in response to complaints from some Punjabi-Canadians that religious fundamentalists would hijack a solemn day to honour the sacrifices of Canadian soldiers.