Roundup: The credible intelligence gets a lot weightier

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At the UN General Assembly, prime minister Justin Trudeau reiterated what he said about credible intelligence pointing to Indian agents responsible for the murder of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil, and said that he is calling on India to help with the investigation. But what we have since learned is that the credible intelligence includes both human sources and signals intelligence from Five Eyes allies that includes Indian diplomats’ communications, and that is certainly lending a lot more heft to these allegations—on top of the fact that the director of CSIS and the National Security Advisory made trips to India to deal with government sources there, and sources are saying that behind closed doors, the Indian government isn’t denying the existence of this intelligence. That’s a pretty big deal, particularly as members of the Pundit Class in this country are trying to insinuate that this is really about Trudeau ginning up controversy to create a distraction (which doesn’t follow this government’s pattern at all).

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1705084748823961930

In the meantime, India has stopped processing travel visas from Canada under the transparently ludicrous excuse that their facilities face security threats, which affects a lot of people here hoping to visit family. Trudeau didn’t say if he would respond in kind, but it seems unlikely if he is serious about saying he’s not trying to provoke or escalate this with India, but to actually get to the bottom of this. (The fact that India doesn’t want to cooperate in public does appear to be something of a tell).

Zelenskyy Visit

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy landed in Ottawa last night. He will be visiting Governor General Mary May Simon this morning, followed by a visit to Parliament Hill, where he will be greeted my parliamentarians in advance of an address to Parliament that will take place around 1 PM Eastern.

https://twitter.com/journo_dale/status/1705081288808403189

Ukraine Dispatch:

While president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Washington, Russian forces pounded more Ukrainian cities, with more deaths being reported in the southern city of Kherson. There has been more shelling of Kherson early this morning. Here is a look at the Ukrainian soldiers fighting their way back to reclaiming Bakhmut.

Good reads:

  • At the UN, Trudeau met with Haiti’s acting prime minister and said that Canada has a role to play to help Haiti, but that solutions can’t come from the outside.
  • Also at the UN, Canada and the Netherlands launched the Global Declaration on Information Integrity Online after a year of work to combat disinformation.
  • Still at the UN, Canada is leading an effort to combat arbitrary detention, and hosted Michael Kovrig to talk about his experiences in hostage diplomacy.
  • Chrystia Freeland has tabled a bill that will remove GST from rental building construction and to amend the Competition Act.
  • Mary Ng signed a battery supply-chain agreement with Japan.
  • The government is giving $17.9 million to Food Banks Canada to run a pilot project to provide menstrual products to those in need.
  • Senators are pointing out that they will need to do the heavy-lifting on the bail reform bill since the Commons passed it with no study.
  • Liberal-turned-independent MP Han Dong says he’s met with Dominic LeBlanc about his status and is waiting to see if he can re-join caucus.
  • Doug Ford has decided to backtrack and rescind his plan to carve up the Greenbelt after yet more scandal revelations, preferring obfuscation.
  • Ontario’s Integrity Commissioner says that there is “insufficient grounds” to fully investigate the stag-and-doe for Ford’s daughter’s wedding.
  • Danielle Smith released a report that claims Alberta could leave CPP and take more than half of its assets—a conclusion that is extremely dubious.

Odds and ends:

 

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