CSIS director to visit India amid signs of possible diplomatic thaw

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OTTAWA — CSIS Director Daniel Rogers will attend an intelligence conclave chaired by India’s spy chief in the first publicly-acknowledged gathering of top security officials from both countries since a tense October meeting that led to diplomatic expulsions.

The meeting comes amid Indian media reports that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government sees Justin Trudeau’s exit as an opportunity to thaw diplomatic relations with Canada.

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The Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) confirmed that director Daniel Rogers will travel to India to attend a March 17 gathering of intelligence chiefs chaired by Modi’s National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval.

The conclave, called the Raisina Insights Forum, is on the eve of the Raisina Dialogue, the country’s largest annual security conference.

“CSIS Director Rogers will travel to New Delhi in the coming days to attend the Raisina Insights Forum along with other intelligence chiefs from around the world,” CSIS spokesperson Lindsay Sloane said in a statement to National Post Wednesday.

“He will meet with a range of partners, including from across the Indo-Pacific, as the region is a critical and growing priority for CSIS and the Government of Canada, to discuss a variety of shared areas of interest,” she added.

It is the first time CSIS confirms a director’s attendance to the Raisina Insights Forum since it was first held in 2022. CSIS rarely, if ever, confirms its officials’ travel plans.

Also expected to attend are U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, U.K. MI6’s Richard Moore and intelligence officials from Australia, Germany, New Zealand and a host of other countries.

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The conclave of intelligence chiefs is organized by India’s National Security Council Secretariat, which is headed by Doval. Sloane’s statement did not specify if Rogers would have a bilateral meeting with Doval, though it would not be surprising.

To say that the last publicly known meeting between Doval and Canadian government officials on Oct. 12 ended poorly would be an understatement.

On Oct. 12, Trudeau’s NSA Nathalie Drouin, RCMP deputy commissioner Mark Flynn and deputy minister of Foreign Affairs David Morrison met with Doval in Singapore to discuss evidence India’s government was involved in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar and a coterie of other crimes against Canadians in Canada.

During the meeting, Doval “refused to acknowledge any links and denied everything we presented,” Drouin told MPs during an Oct. 29 committee meeting. He then asked the Canadian officials to keep the meeting confidential until they reconvened two days later, she said.

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“Instead, the Government of India chose to not respect our agreement and went public the next day, Sunday, October 13, again using its false narrative that Canada has not shown any evidence,” Drouin testified.

“By going public, the Government of India clearly signalled it was not going to be accountable or take the actions we need it to take to ensure public safety.”

Two days after the meeting, Canada expelled six Indian diplomats — including High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma — it said were persons of interest in Nijjar’s murder. The same day, India responded tit-for-tat and expelled six Canadian envoys, including High Commissioner Stewart Wheeler.

The Indian government has called Canada’s allegations “absurd”.

But there are signs that the Indian government is ready to reset the diplomatic relationship as Canada searches for new trade partners amid a historic and massive trade war with the United States.

What is unclear is if Canada is ready to do the same without evidence the Indian government is taking the RCMP’s allegations seriously.

The Hindu reported this week that Modi’s government is considering appointing a new high commissioner to Canada in an apparent bid to thaw the frigid relationship.

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The impetuses are reportedly twofold: Trudeau’s exit, as well as signals from new Prime Minister Mark Carney that he’s interested in exploring free-trade opportunities with “like-minded” countries such as India.

“What Canada will be looking to do is to diversify our trading relationships with like-minded countries, and there are opportunities to rebuild the relationships with India,” he said at a leadership campaign event in Calgary on March 4.

A statement by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) did not address questions about if Canada was also considering appointing a new high commissioner to India.

“Despite challenges in the relationship, bilateral engagement has continued, and Canada will continue to seek to work constructively with India,” GAC spokesperson Louis-Carl Brissette Lesage wrote to National Post.

In an interview, Indo-Pacific and geopolitics specialist Jonathan Berkshire Miller said Rogers’ trip to India is a positive signal that Canada wants to begin mending its relationship with India.

“Restoring the diplomacy at the intelligence level, I think, is a certain important first step,” said the senior fellow at the MacDonald-Laurier Institute.

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India is of renewed interest as a potential trading partner as Canada looks to step away from the U.S. after President Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on Canadian goods all the while threatening to annex his northern neighbour.

India is a prime, albeit complex, market for Canada, Berkshire Miller said.

“We can’t really have a successful diversification program with bad relationship with China, bad relationship with the U.S., an obviously understandably bad relationship with Russia,” he said. “I think the geopolitical scene more broadly, shows an urgency for us to sort of find a way to engage with India.”

“We’re in a land of bad options. And when you’re in a land of bad options, you choose some of the options that are less worse than the others,” he added.

But he and other Canadian envoys warned Indian officials during a visit last month that it will be a slow and cautious process by Canada.

“The restoring of high commissioners I think is a great first step, and I think that probably will happen,” he said. But Canada can’t replace the dozens of diplomats India has expelled over the years with a flick of a switch and the Nijjar case is likely to last for years in court.

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“This could take some time,” he noted.

National Post
cnardi@postmedia.com

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