QUESTION PERIOD — Prime Minister’s Office
Comments of Prime Minister
December 13, 2023
My question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate.
Leader, the Prime Minister has begun his round of year-end media interviews. He was asked about his statement accusing India of being linked to the murder of an activist in Canada. In his responses to the media, the Prime Minister said the following, and I quote:
They chose to attack us and undermine us with a scale of misinformation and disinformation in their media that was comical.
“That was comical.” The Prime Minister used those words. Don’t you think the Prime Minister is fanning the flames?
The evidence, the information that the Prime Minister shared with Canadians about India’s involvement in the killing of a Sikh community leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, was sadly confirmed through shared intelligence, confirmed and communicated by our allies, including the United States. What happened wasn’t “comical,” it was serious. The Government of Canada, with the significant contribution of India and with the people of India, will continue to call on that country to collaborate with us to come up with a solution, so that we can simply understand what happened and so that justice can be served.
Don’t you think the Prime Minister was fanning the flames when he described the Indian media coverage as “comical” in his year-end interviews? Won’t this once again damage relations between Canada and India? Is this the kind of international relationship he wants to maintain?
I think it’s important for our government to take an honest and serious look at what happened on Canadian soil. I think the relationship between Canada and India is strong enough to survive certain statements about the media in India.
