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What did you think when the original version of the report referenced “Sikh extremism”?

I thought it was a positive development. I thought it was long overdue. It was innocuous in terms of the way it was expressed because it referred to Sikhs but then put “Khalistani threat” in brackets right after. It did not talk about Sikhs except those that are Khalistanis. It also references Islamic extremists. I didn’t feel the report maligned any Sikhs who didn’t believe in violence along with Khalistan.

What were your thoughts when complaints came in about the wording?

Their slogan was prove it or remove it. This kind of shocked me because the intelligence community agencies must know that even recently you have Khalistanis going to Pakistan and coming back and prominently taking part in anti-India activities.

What did you think about the change to the wording?

I think Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has bowed to hard-right Khalistanis. If he had bowed in the same way to hard-right fundamentalist Christians on any issue, there would be devastating criticisms of him by the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP. Except in this particular case the identity politics has won the day. This is an extreme case of political pandering by Mr. Trudeau. He capitulated to the hard-right Khalistanis and undermined the Canadian intelligence agencies or at least their independence in the way they want to identify their threats. Once again, after the SNC-Lavalin saga he interfered in a process that is and ought to be free from political meddling or meddling from politicians who pander to a minority group or pressure groups of any kind whatsoever.