Oh, Canada.
My wife and I visited our northern neighbor just a week ago, while its Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was stuck in India . . . with plane trouble.
“Trudeau’s presence at the G20 summit . . . came against a backdrop of tensions between his government and host India over Ottawa’s handling of rightwing Sikh separatists,” U.K.’s Guardian reported. “New Delhi accuses Ottawa of turning a blind eye to the activities of radical Sikh nationalists who seek a separate Sikh homeland in northern India.”
Meanwhile, in Vancouver, British Columbia, I served as a member of the Punjab Referendum Commission, an international group with some know-how about direct democracy. We’re advising and monitoring the referendums being organized around the world by U.S.-based Sikhs for Justice. Nearly a million Sikhs live in Canada.
Mr. Trudeau should wear the Indian government’s scorn as a badge of honor, of course, for upholding the Sikhs’ basic rights to speak out in his putative free society.
But that’s not the only billion-being nation-state brouhaha this scion faces; Trudeau’s Liberal Party controls the Parliament but “after months of demands from opposition parties” just finally agreed to an official public inquiry into foreign (read: Chinese) interference in their political affairs.
“Canadian news reports earlier this year, citing anonymous Canadian intelligence officials and leaked classified documents, alleged that Chinese intelligence officials had funneled donations to its preferred candidates,” explains Axios, “all members of Canada’s Liberal Party led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.”
Worse than plane trouble.
I hope Canadians will get to the bottom of it and hold their politicians accountable in ways that we in the U.S. did not 30 years ago when Washington was first awash with Chinese cash.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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