Mr. Chair, I would like to start by saying that I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Rivière-du-Nord.
I too would like to offer my deepest condolences to the family and friends of Hardeep Singh Nijjar and to the entire Canadian Sikh community, which is quite large. I believe my colleagues have already made it clear that our hearts and thoughts are with them. What happened last June is deeply disturbing. When I think of the loved ones and family members who did not get this information until months later, that is even more distressing, as it forces them to experience that grief and pain all over again. Our thoughts are with them.
I appreciate my colleagues' tone this evening. This is a rather non-partisan debate and a subject that should be non-partisan. Our role, as parliamentarians, is to reassure Quebeckers, Canadians, the Canadian Sikh community and everyone. The government may have failed to do that. I do not necessarily want to dole out criticism right away. Obviously, we applauded the Prime Minister's transparency in the statement he made yesterday. That was appreciated, but it raised concerns among the Canadian Sikh community, particularly among those who claim to have been victims of intimidation by the Indian government for many years, people who feel even less safe today. What message is the government sending those people to reassure them? Perhaps I did not really hear it.
It is important to say that this incident is quite simply a form of foreign interference. During the last parliamentary session, we talked a lot about all forms of foreign interference. Even some of our colleagues here in the House were being intimidated. However, the fact that a foreign state was allegedly involved in the murder of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is even more worrisome and raises a lot of questions. I think that it is good that we are having this debate this evening, but, unfortunately, we are not going to get answers to the questions being raised.
We are talking about some pretty serious accusations. Earlier, I heard a minister say that it was inappropriate to make accusations while an investigation is under way, so I was not quite sure what the government's position was. Such serious allegations must not be based on mere suspicions. The evidence must support them. It feels as though only some of the information has been shared with us. Canadians have the right to know the information. We completely understand that an investigation is under way, but as I said, it does raise some questions.
We are running out of time, but, essentially, I would like to come back to the all-important questions that my colleagues raised earlier, especially about the fact that we have not yet seen any of Canada's allies or other states in the international community speak to these serious allegations. We were told that the Prime Minister may have informed certain states before even informing the House and Canadians.
We have to wonder why. Is it because some states do not necessarily agree, or are they afraid of this confrontation or of a strained diplomatic relationship with India? We are obviously headed toward a very tense diplomatic relationship now, if that is not already the case. It must be said that Canada is standing up to the great state of India and there have been some hiccups in the past, particularly when Canada refused to extradite Canadians of Indian origin.
We are told that the government knew about foreign interference by India for several months, even years. We are talking about foreign interference and ways to prevent it. How are we talking about this only now when the government may have been aware?
This raises several questions.