Pro-Khalistan elements in Canada held recent events with violent imagery, including that of an assassination, despite Prime Minister Mark Carney’s warning not to bring foreign hatreds to Canada. The events were held over the weekend in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) on Sunday and in Vancouver in British Columbia.
They came days after Carney said, “We do not welcome the world’s hatreds. When you come to Canada, you bring your faith, your tradition, your language, your story. You leave behind your animosities.”
While Carney’s original statement on June 1 was made in the context of the surge in hate-motivated attacks on Canadian Jews, he repeated the statement last week during an event at a hospital in GTA.
The secessionist group Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) boasted on Monday that an “activist Manjinder Singh”, described as close associate of the group’s general counsel Gurpatwant Pannun, “in a gesture reenacting the assassination of Indira Gandhi, ‘shot’ at an effigy of the former Indian Prime Minister in front of the Indian Consulate in Vancouver, demonstrating the manner in which Gandhi was assassinated on 31 October 1984.”
That assassination reenactment came as the weekend also witnessed a float at an event in GTA that showed the killing. That event also had on display images of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, considered the originator of violent Khalistan-linked terrorism by India, as well as those of Talwinder Singh Parmar, who Canadian authorities have said was among the masterminds behind the bombing of Air India flight 182, the Kanishka in 1985, the worst-ever incident of terrorism in Canadian history. The depiction came days before the 41st anniversary of the terror attack on June 23. The Kanishka bombing claimed 329 lives and two baggage handlers at Narita Airport in Japan were killed when another bomb on another Air India flight exploded there.
Reacting to the events of the last two days, the National Alliance of Indo-Canadians expressed concern over the “toxic glorification of violence, with disturbing tableau, in public space” by Canada-based Khalistan Extremists, or CBKEs. That term was coined by Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), which used CBKEs in its annual reports for 2024 and 2025.
In its latest report, released this May, CSIS said, “Ongoing involvement in violent extremist activities by CBKEs continues to pose a national security threat to Canada and to Canadian interests.”
It added that some CBKEs were “well connected to Canadian citizens who leverage Canadian institutions to promote their violent extremist agenda and collect funds from unsuspecting community members that are then diverted toward violent activities.”
While welcoming Carney’s words, Arunesh Giri, president of the Hindu Canadian Foundation (HCF), said they “must be matched with decisive action.”
“We are looking for an action-based approach to make our streets safer from hate,” he stressed, adding that CBKE activities “violate the very values the Prime Minister has articulated, values that define what it means to be Canadian. Protecting our civic compact requires not only strong legislation but firm, consistent enforcement that ensures every community can live without fear.”
Carney has also spoken of bill C-9, which is close to being legislated, after being passed by the Senate earlier this month. “It significantly strengthens the Criminal Code by creating new offences for intimidation and obstruction at places of worship, schools, community centres, and other institutions used by identifiable communities,” he said earlier this month.
That proposed law will create a new hate propaganda offence “of wilfully promoting hatred against any identifiable group by displaying, in a public place, certain terrorism or hate symbols” and a hate crime offence “motivated by hatred based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression.” However, its utility in combatting the violent imagery frequently used by pro-Khalistan separatists in Canada still remains to be tested on the ground.