India, China and Pakistan are accused of meddling in Canadian elections

Ottawa accused India, Pakistan and China of trying to interfere in Canadian elections. The country’s top intelligence agency has made this allegation.

In a report published last week, the intelligence agency of the country made this complaint. Aljazeera news.

According to the report, three Asian countries tried to interfere in Canada’s last two national elections, according to a Canadian intelligence report. However, the name of Russia is also in this list.

Russia is already notorious for meddling in other countries’ elections. There has been a congressional investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election. China has also been accused of cyber influence several times. But the names of India and Pakistan in this list are quite surprising.

Canada’s top intelligence agency (CSIS) said in the report that India, Pakistan and China tried to interfere in the Canadian national elections held in 2019 and 2021. The Indian government has worked behind the scenes to ensure the victory of certain candidates in some of the country’s constituencies. Similar allegations have been made against Pakistan. They are accused of trying to influence the political arena from the central level before the 2019 elections.

Many people are shaken by this accusation from Canada. Because, normally a sovereign country does a lot of vetting before making such allegations against another sovereign country. And Canada considers both India and Pakistan as its partners. Although recently, the relationship between India and Canada can be said to be quite cold around the killing of Nijja. Meanwhile, many are keen on how India will deal with allegations of government-sponsored interference in elections.

Allegations against India
Citing CSIS documents, Al-Jazeera reported that India employed some agents before the 2019 and 2021 elections. Their main task was to find politicians in Canada who could help their interests. India did this with the aim of ensuring that the Canadian government gives priority to Indian interests, especially regarding the pro-Khalistan Sikhs. For this, India provided financial support to some Canadian politicians, so that they could win pro-India candidates or influence the winning candidates. In some cases even the candidates did not know that illegal money was being spent on their election campaigns.

According to the report, India tried to spread this influence in certain constituencies, where people of Indian origin live more. And the Indians in that region were sympathetic to the Khalistan issue.

What is India saying?
When news broke last February that Canada had launched an investigation into Indian election meddling, India was quick to respond, calling it “baseless”.

In a related statement, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said that India has no policy of interfering in the democratic process of other countries. Instead, it is Canada that is nosing in our internal affairs.

What charges against Pakistan?
According to the CSIS report, Pakistan’s efforts to expand its influence in Canada are mainly based on Pakistan’s own interests. Pakistan tries to influence Canada to protect Pakistan’s interests in politics, security and economy. One of Islamabad’s goals in this regard is to position itself against India’s growing global influence.

However, despite trying to intervene before the elections, Pakistan’s role in this case was small, according to the report. Their main goal was to have someone who was pro-Pakistan and anti-India at the Canadian policy-making level.

However, no response was received from Pakistan regarding this complaint.

Who is Hardeep Singh, what do pro-Khalistanists really want? Who is Hardeep Singh, what do pro-Khalistanists really want?

What did China do?
CSIS is doing a detailed investigation on China. However, as far as information is available, it is certain that China influenced the 2019 and 2021 elections.

Canada’s last two elections were won by the Liberal Party led by Justin Trudeau. CSIS says, ‘We are convinced that China engaged in covert and fraudulent activities in the 2019 and 2021 elections. In this case, their main target was the interests of China. They either wanted to see people who aligned with their interests win, or they wanted people who did not conflict with Chinese interests to win.”

However, China denied this allegation.