EDITORIAL: Poisoned fruit of PM’s ‘post-national’ state

Article content Canadians could be forgiven if they believed Canada was magically transported to India this week to witness a raging debate between a Canadian Liberal MP accusing the leader of the Canada’s New Democratic Party of being an apologist for Sikh Khalistani terrorists, while the latter accused the Liberal of being a propagandist for a murderous Indian government. This happened in the wake of a violent brawl outside a Hindu temple in Brampton on Sunday between Sikhs who favour the creation of an independent state called Khalistan in the Punjab region of India and Hindus who share the Indian government’s view that leaders of the Khalistan movement are terrorists. While both sides accused the other of provoking the violence, Liberal MP Chandra Arya, citing a report that a Peel police officer had been suspended for allegedly participating in the protest, while the incident is being investigated, tweeted on X: “The attack by Khalistanis on the Hindu-Canadian devotees inside .

.. the Hindu Sabha temple in Brampton shows how deep and brazen .



.. Khalistani violent extremism has become in Canada”, and that it could mean the movement has infiltrated law enforcement agencies as well as the government itself.

In response, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh accused Arya of parroting unproven allegations by the Indian government which is itself accused of “serious violence and terror against Canadians” of Sikh origin, up to and including extrajudicial murder in Canada and that Arya should be helping to reduce tensions rather than inflaming them by repeating Indian propaganda. In response, Arya accused Singh of refusing to acknowledge the presence of violent Khalistani extremism in Canada. We’ll leave it to investigators to determine what happened at the Hindu temple and who was or was not responsible.

But, in our opinion, this raises a much bigger concern ignited by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s publicly stated and alarming belief after becoming PM in 2015 that Canada was becoming the world’s first “post-national state” where “there is no core identity, no mainstream.” A “mainstream” Canadian value used to be that attacks on places of worship in Canada were verboten, full stop. But after years of church burnings, attacks on synagogues, mosques and now a Hindu temple, it appears the previous Canadian consensus on this issue has crumbled.

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