A recent report by Canada’s top intelligence agency CSIS has found that Indian Consulate was actively involved in influencing the 2022 Conservative leadership race that produced Pierre Poilievre as the winner and current leader. Government of India agents appear to have interfered in the Conservative’s 2022 leadership race by purchasing memberships for one candidate while undermining another, and also boasted of funding “a number of politicians at all levels of government,” according to CSIS, reported Sam Cooper of the www.thebureau.news.
By DESIBUZZCanada Staff
OTTAWA – A recent report by Canada’s top intelligence agency CSIS has found that Indian Consulate was actively involved in influencing the 2022 Conservative leadership race that produced Pierre Poilievre as the winner and current leader.
Government of India agents appear to have interfered in the Conservative’s 2022 leadership race by purchasing memberships for one candidate while undermining another, and also boasted of funding “a number of politicians at all levels of government,” according to CSIS, reported Sam Cooper of the www.thebureau.news.
The allegations come from an October 2022 CSIS Intelligence Assessment that details sweeping election interference operations from hostile states including China and India.
But the “Canadian Eyes Only” October 2022 report underlines that India is using the same corrosive tactics as Beijing. And allegations that India uses proxies to corrupt Canadian politicians have gained new urgency since CSIS filed this report, according to the Bureau.
That’s because an explosive U.S. Department of Justice indictment unsealed last week charges that Indian government agents were caught red-handed while directing international gangsters in assassination plots against a number of Sikh separatists in Canada and the United States.
The indictment suggests masked gun men that murdered Khalistan-separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Vancouver on June 18 were directed by the same Indian intelligence handler that subsequently accelerated a plan to murder Nijjar’s associate in New York City.
The terrifying connections between Indian security officials and transnational gangs revealed by this U.S. investigation, resemble similar criminal networks active in Beijing’s United Front-linked police stations and election interference in Canada, according to a new intelligence report from a Washington-based anti-corruption NGO.
The report says Canada is ill-equipped to deter a new lethal form of transnational crime that fulfills geopolitical objectives for states including China, Russia and Iran.
It isn’t clear whether Canada’s upcoming Foreign Interference Commission, which has been criticized for its narrow mandate, will examine the U.S. Justice allegations cited in this story, or evidence from RCMP that foreign states including China are employing organized crime proxies to interfere in Canada, reported the Bureau.
The October 2022 Intelligence Assessment says “a body of CSIS reporting since 2020 indicates that a Canadian GoI [Government of India] proxy agent continues to claim that they are providing electoral support – including significant amounts of money – to a number of politicians at all levels of government.”
It says the unidentified Indian agent is trying to keep pro-Indian politicians in office with clandestine funding, but also to forge “a bond with newly elected politicians who, in turn, will owe the proxy agent future favours,” reported the Bureau.
