Ex-PM Stephen Harper says he's perplexed, heartbroken by Canada-India tensions

Former prime minister Stephen Harper arrives at a funeral service in Montreal on Saturday, March 23, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

OTTAWA — Former prime minister Stephen Harper told a conference in India last month that he doesn’t “entirely understand” why Canada has such a poor relationship with India, and suggested the Liberal party has become infiltrated by Sikh activists who want to carve a separate state out of India.

“Frankly, I have been heartbroken to watch the steady deterioration of this relationship under my successor. I don’t think I entirely understand why that is,” Harper said in his remarks to a Feb. 28 conference in New Delhi called the NXT Conclave.

His commentary was posted online on YouTube.

Ties between Ottawa and New Delhi have been in a deep freeze since fall 2023, when then-prime minister Justin Trudeau said his government had “credible allegations” linking agents of the Indian government to the murder of a Sikh activist near Vancouver.

A year later Ottawa expelled six Indian diplomats after the RCMP alleged that New Delhi was behind widespread acts of murder, extortion and coercion across Canada.

New Delhi stands accused of playing a role in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian activist who called for the establishment of an independent Sikh state to be called Khalistan.

Harper alluded to the ongoing criminal investigations briefly in his remarks, saying, “I am certainly in no position to evaluate the accusations.”

New Delhi says the Khalistan movement threatens India’s national security. Ottawa has long said that it upholds India’s territorial integrity but won’t crack down on freedom of expression in Canada.

The issue had become an irritant during Trudeau’s time in government, as a series of separation referendums and parade floats depicting violence received scant mainstream media attention in Canada but were the subject of emotive news reports in India.

Trudeau also angered Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he expressed concern over the Modi government’s crackdown on farmers' protests in India that included a large number of Sikhs.

Harper argued his government took a different approach to a “fringe minority” that supports Khalistan and is “injurious” to Canada’s relations with India. He said his government operated from the assumption that most Canadians have no interest in the secession movement.

“It is about time that all political parties and politicians in Canada made building those people-to-people ties, that represent the vast majority of our peoples, the priority — and not the priority of building relations with Khalistanis,” Harper said.

“I will give the government of Prime Minister Modi great credit for not disrupting those people-to-people ties given the current coolness between the governments.”

“In Canada, you have a right to be a Khalistani. It’s a democratic opinion,” Harper said. “But it should not be infiltrating our governing party, and it should not be inhibiting good people-to-people relations between India and Canada.”

Modi is known to be close to Harper, who chairs the International Democrat Union, a global coalition of conservative parties that used to include Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.

In 2019, Harper visited Modi in India and on Twitter, the platform now known as X, called Modi a “friend” and the “most significant leader of India since Independence” who was “shaping every conversation on geopolitics and the global economy.”

In January, the national inquiry into foreign interference called India “the second most-active country engaging in electoral foreign interference in Canada,” particularly on the Khalistan issue.

“India focuses its foreign interference activities on the Indo-Canadian community and on prominent non-Indo-Canadians to achieve its objectives,” the inquiry reported.

“A body of intelligence indicates that proxy agents may have, and may continue to be, clandestinely providing illicit financial support to various Canadian politicians in an attempt to secure the election of pro-India candidates or gain influence over candidates who take office,” the inquiry concluded, adding that some of those candidates might not be aware of India’s influence.

The Canadian Press has reached out to Harper through his consulting firm for comment but has not yet received a response.

In his comments at the conference, Harper also warned that the global order is unravelling and said middle powers like India and Canada should collaborate more on critical minerals and intelligence, instead of encouraging a world of hard-power spheres of influence.

“The world that is emerging is not a desirable state of affairs for humanity. In fact, this state of affairs ominously mirrors the rivalries of the pre-World War I period, and history tells us where that led,” he said.

“God help us as we enter a new such period with its combination of advanced weaponry and computer power.”

Harper said Trump’s proposed tariffs on Canada are unjustified, and he’s troubled by Trump’s “seemingly agnostic view” toward democratic nations, citing his “gratuitous attacks on countries like Canada and Denmark” while cozying up to Russia and Turkey.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 20, 2025.

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press