The recently released 2018 Public Report on the Terrorism Threat to Canada [Report] lists the following threats: Sunni Islamist Extremism, Right Wing Extremism, Sikh (Khalistani) Extremism, Shia Extremism and Canadian Extremist Travellers. It clearly states the undeniable fact that "Some individuals in Canada continue to support Sikh (Khalistani) extremist ideologies and movements."
The Report engendered an immediate outcry from the usual quarters. It threw some Sikh and other MPs including some ministers in Prime Minister Trudeau's cabinet into a tizzy.
A meeting of some organisations in Toronto issued hyper ultimatums to the Government of Canada to meet with them by a certain deadline, rescind what they considered to be the offending potions of the Report or else. Else what? No one knows.
Much of the debate on the Report has been in Punjabi, in the Punjabi media, allowing many participants to run with the hare while hunting with the hounds, further exacerbating the ghettoising effects of the rabid identity politics at play. Unfortunately there has been little investigative or other reporting by the so called mainstream media in this matter.
The Report was released on December 11th. The immediately manufactured outrage of the parliamentarians at the inoffensive Report resulted in a meeting on December 13--most Sikh and some other MPs huddling with the Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale in the Center Block of Parliament. Reliable sources have confirmed that right at the beginning of the meeting Goodale undertook to delete the word "Sikh" from the Report while reaffirming the Government's position that the threat of terrorism in the name of Khalistan was real, serious and persistent. But that wasn't enough for some MPs and Ministers; they pressed for more. Many insisted upon the complete deletion of the entire section dealing with "(Khalistani) Extremism". Some among them threatened to go public with a denunciation of the Report unless Minister Goodale acceded to the demand then and there. Goodale responded by telling the still unhappy MPs to go take a hike--rightly so because it doesn't behove any Canadians, let alone our elected representatives to deny, a la Trump, the truth and undermine the nations' intelligence community.
Upon Goodale's refusal to comply with their patently unreasonable demand, some MPs as well as a cabinet minister or two swung into action, criticising the Report in the Punjabi media and pandering to the Khalistanis and their sympathisers. According to the National Post MP Randeep Sarai fired off a letter to Goodale on December14 urging deletion of the reference to Sikh extremism, a day after Goodale had already offered to delete the word "Sikh" from the Report. Several MPs and at least one minister publicly regretted their "mistake" in including the reference to "Sikh (Khalistani) extremism" in the Report. It was abundantly clear that they were simply gratifying the Khalistanis and publicly lobbying Minister Goodale to do what he had told them he won't do: Excise the section on "Khalistani Extremism" from the Report.
Not to be left behind the Conservative opposition MP Garnett Genius, too, took to the radio casting aside all understanding of the process by which security and intelligence reports are compiled or the importance of not politicising the work of our intelligence professionals and joined the Liberal MPs in their ongoing unseemly pandering.
This pitiable public grovelling by politicians has left the impression that they, not the intelligence and security professionals, have the final say in the formulation of national security and intelligence reports. Sadly the turmoil in Trumpland seems to have induced a degree of Trumpian delusion in some Canadian politicians' cranial cavities.
To make matters worse some politicians and groups want the government to prove the reference in the Report to Khalistani extremism is rooted in evidence. It would be foolish to publicly share the classified evidence underlying the Report. Min Goodale had informed the meeting that the Report's conclusions are substantially and amply supported by evidence. If he didn't, Goodale should have reminded the complaining MPs that Canada wasn't some banana republic where any pressure group, no matter how vocal, could or should be allowed to undermine its national security by forcing a public disclosure of classified and sensitive intelligence.
Canada has a right to expect truth and nothing but the truth from our civil servants and that is nowhere more important than in national security. Via the Report the civil servants have given us an unvarnished view of the threats to our national security as they see them.
The unusually vociferous Khalistani elements in Canada--unfortunately a few of them occupying seats in our Parliament-- have never understood nor honestly accepted the tragic truth of the Khalistani violence and terror that has been perpetrated on and from the Canadian soil. It is well known to anyone who cares about truth that Khalistani extremism is a continuing threat in Canada. The portraits of the Air India terrorist Talwinder Parmar and many others are still revered inside many temples in Canada and on the outside walls of at least one--in Surrey. The perpetrators of Khalistani terror continue to be glorified in public parades. From that and much else it is quite evident that far from being extinct, Khalistani extremism is well and alive in Canada. The most foolish defence of such extremism offered by some self confessed Khalistanis is that they mean no harm to Canada; it is only India that is the focus of their hatred; if they harbour or support violence, it is only for India--as if one could live a schizophrenic philosophical or political existence, one half violent, the other half non violent.
In Canada, in this instance, it is identity politics on steroids that is engaged in this deliberate undermining of Canadian national intelligence apparatus. This quite strident identity politics has almost completely consumed some in the parliament of Canada. That there was absolutely no need for these political panderers to raise the issue in the first place becomes clearer upon a cursory examination of the descriptions the Report uses. "Sunni Islamist extremism" clearly refers only to the Islamist extremists amongst the Sunnis, not to all Sunnis; otherwise there was no need for the word "Islamist" in it. The reference to "Sikh (khalistani) extremism" is deliberately designed to point to the Khalistani extremists amongst the Sikhs, not to all Sikhs; otherwise the word "Khalistani" would have been unnecessary.
The bald and inescapable truth is Canada can't and mustn't allow any extremist movements on its soil aimed at itself or at any foreign countries.
Canada's national security is beyond compromise, be it under the guise of bruised religious sensibilities, heightened identity politics or cowardly pandering by slithering politicians.
@ujjjaldosanjh
