Vaccinations should be compulsory!
So, India renaming itself to Bharatā¦has this been a long simmering thing? Iām honestly not sure Iāve ever even heard the word Bharat used before the flurry of reports I saw about it this week.
Gimmick by the modi govt for the upcoming elections.
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@Arminius , whatās the view from Canada side on Trudeau in general ? Looking at the outside , his approval ratings within Canada seem to be slipping dangerously.
It is fairly remarkable how he has gone from a massive asset for the Liberal Party to being a potentially terminal liability over the course of 8 years. My own politics are somewhere in the border region between the Conservatives and the Liberals, and would skew more to the Conservatives but for the fact that the current incarnation are a dire lot of Trump-wannabe yahoos. But Trudeau has annoyed me since 2014. Somehow, despite more or less doing the same thing all along, he seems now to annoy the vast majority of Canadians.
Weirdly, a lot of the economic critiques of the government are also seemingly misplaced in time. Suddenly, now we are all concerned about runaway spending, yet a huge amount of that spending increase was unavoidable, related to the pandemic and post-pandemic. I donāt know what the hell we all thought was going on between 2015 and 2019 when program spending was increasing so dramatically, but apparently we all thought it was just fine back then.
The serious Liberals I know (and being from the Ottawa-Montreal axis, I know a lot, including former PMs) think it is probably for him to emulate his father, who famously took the āwalk in the snowā, realized he had become yesterdayās man, and stepped down. The fundamental problem is that his supporters border on being in a personality cult, and it doesnāt appear there are many serious people around him who can just tell him that timeās up. Like any government that has been in power a bit too long, he is surrounded by third-stringers these days, and his caucus doesnāt have many heavyweights left. That, of course, means that the list of credible potential successors is fairly short.
My own suspicion is that his fundamental narcissism prevents him from internalizing the idea that he could in fact lose to a massive twerp like Pierre Poilievre (I have despised him since all the way back in 2004!). Throw in the fact that he probably has little idea of what to do next. Former PMs tend to pop up places like the UN or NATO. Canada just burned loads of political capital in a failed effort to get a Security Council seat, his standing at the UN aināt great these days. Meanwhile, NATO members arenāt going to be particularly interested in bringing on a leader who has neglected his own armed forces as the world has steadily become a more dangerous place - particularly one who has openly tweaked Trump.
So, my guess is he will manage to stick around until the next election, and the question will be whether or not the Liberals survive. Justin can be credited with resurrecting the Liberals from the 2006-2015 period where there were real hopes/fears that they would fade into irrelevance, but it is at least possible that this next election will unwind that.
The tldr points are:
i) he will probably stick around to fight the next election, despite growing fears in his party that that will be a disaster
ii) he has virtually no chance of winning the next election, the calculus is steadily shifting to how badly the Liberals might lose
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One of the whole points of this is to bypass Turkey so as to not give the discount caliph Erdogan that power again.
Take it thereās no alternate. Jagmeet Singh seems to be someone whoās having fringe votes at best. Also alliance of convenience with Trudeau.
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1703854226210693528
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1703854787580645534
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1703855299403120963
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1703856253670162880
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1703856427406708981
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1703858513594785869
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1703858937651450130
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1703860172785868950
It seems Canadian intelligence thinks it has evidence of India roving Canada with assassination teams. Seems rather serious indeed. Not shocking maybe, but certainly very serious and slightly eye brow raising if India is willing to risk obvious diplomatic damage (seems an odd decision, canāt understand the target it that critically important) and murder people in western countries.
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Wonāt be surprised if thereās some Indian Govt association with the murders.
Also very likely that the Khalistani seperatists (terrorists) have factions and infighting between them as well. So fuck knows.
Indiaās not had prior history of that , but who knows.
The Khalistani movement is pretty much dead in India though. Most of the Sikhs in India(if not all) donāt support that movement at all. Itās a fringe movement at best.
This is a thing as well.
I wonder about that. It has been repeatedly observed that Sikh students with no apparent prior history of Sikh radicalism in India are becoming radical remarkably quickly - much more so than in the past. It is possible that they are being radicalized in Canadian gurdwaras, however it seems highly probable that Sikhs in India have learned not to express Khalistani sentiment or affiliate with problematic groups in India. Once they arrive in Canada and are living with very different constraints, underlying resentments may be connecting them to radical groups. The theory is that the Modi era has greatly intensified that.
To be honest, it all makes me think Canada should reduce the level of immigration from the Indian subcontinent, just too many Old World poisons being brought in.
Quick read through the Times of India article, interesting how the same fundamental information is presented very differently as compared to the Canadian sources - simple example is ToIās reference to Nijjar as āKhalistan Tiger Force leaderā, while CBC does not name the group, does not the denial of his role with it, while also stating that he was president of a Surrey gurdwara.
Heās a wanted person in India for terrorist activities.
This would take a big answer and Iāll split it to parts
Firstly will start with immigration and then go onto the bigger ones later. Iāve worked in Overseas Staffing and PR facilitation before and focussed on Canada as well. The biggest problem with Canadian immigration is that a) for students , thereās no compulsion to work in the course you have studied in to be eligible for PR. B) for PR , it basically takes money and a sponsor. The sponsor can be a relative or it can be a company. Basically you get a PR on arrival. That policy is wrong imo because then again after getting the PR , you(as in the Canadian govt) are not ensuring that your short skilled vacancies are filled. Again thereās no requirement that a person whoās studied say a computers degree works in a related field.
As far as stopping or restricting immigration, I think the ship has sailed , youāve got a significant portion of votebanks which both parties need to court. Essentially the current Trudeau govt is being propped by Jagmeet Singh.
I get what you are saying in terms of restricting immigration, but when the entry barrier is set so low , then it becomes a dicey situation where people as you say with their personal baggage come in.
You donāt see that problem with Indians in USA do you. But with countries with low entry barriers and then low employment barriers , you will see what happens.
Yeah, that is sort of along the same lines - very explicit allegations in the ToI related to his involvement in attacks (though presumably mainly as an offshore organizer) become very vague in the CBC story.
I presume āabsconderā is the status of an unconvicted fugitive who has been charged but not tried?
He entered Canada via a false passport. India made requests for his extradition in 2010 itself. He was wanted prior to him entering Canada.
Anyway , if The Indian govt is complicit in his killing , I unequivocally condemn it. Thereās no place for that in the modern world.
Function of percentages I suspect. Per capita we let in far more immigrants, and as you say, that ship may now have sailed. But in particular, I think Canada is more appealing to Sikhs than the US because of the relative size of the community, and especially appealing to Sikhs for whom radicalism is at least an element of their thinking.
The percentages of Sikhs who have immigrated and who further support Khalistan are still very less to the percentage whoāve stayed back and condemned Khalistan as a movement though.
Khalistan as a movement never gathered much credence from the Sikh community. The Indian govt made sure that Sikhs were at the forefront of combating that movement as well.
It is notable that the radicals are highly concentrated in the Vancouver area. Much less in the Toronto area, and almost no radical presence in other Canadian cities.
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