Foreign Affairs committee  I'm not aware of any direct impact of the current challenges between Canada and India on India's relations with its neighbours.

Foreign Affairs committee  No, I'm not aware of any benefits to any other countries in this regard. It should be noted that trade negotiations can move quickly, but they can move slowly. They can be quite long processes, both for Canada and, I would add, for other countries pursuing trade agreements, with India in this case.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, we monitor all forms of media quite closely. I think it has been very interesting to see the amount of chatter or discussion of these matters, both on social media in Canada and also within India.

Foreign Affairs committee  I guess what I would say is that some of the more sensational elements of what's happened—for example, allegations of potential links between India and the death of a Canadian—obviously generate a lot of commentary. However, the expulsion of Canadian diplomats also generated a lot of coverage.

Foreign Affairs committee  I have not spent time—and I'm not aware that my colleagues have—in parsing the responses or reactions of different communities within Canada. I think it's important to emphasize that, for Global Affairs Canada, we look at the impact of foreign policy on Canadian citizens, irrespective of their religious or community interests.

Foreign Affairs committee  That's a fair point. There's an ongoing discussion between departments. GAC is part of that conversation. We don't lead on determining whether there are grounds for those accusations and how to deal with them within Canadian borders, but we certainly support, through a number of mechanisms, ongoing dialogue about how to address international crime.

Foreign Affairs committee  Quickly, Mr. Chair, I won't get into the details of this trip or that, but the bottom line is that Canadian senior officials, including the national security and intelligence adviser, Deputy Minister Morrison and others, have intensively used our existing channels of diplomacy to make sure the Indian government understands the nature of our concerns, to describe the allegations that we're concerned with and to look at ways to move forward together to get to the bottom of the matter.

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, I'll be very quick. The question has a reasonable premise. I believe that the government's decision, for example, to pause free trade negotiations with India reflects the premise that, given the serious nature of the allegations, it's not currently “business as usual”.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. It's important to go back to these principles and the basis for managing diplomatic relations, which is the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. In short, that convention uses the term “parity” nowhere, and that term was the basis on which the Indian government explained its expulsion of 41 diplomats.

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, I want to get to this quickly so I don't waste the member's time. I'm not in a position to comment on the specifics of the inquiry and its terms of reference. It's under way, and I will leave items that should come before the inquiry to the inquiry.

Foreign Affairs committee  We take note of those comments, and we've heard those views expressed in diplomatic meetings repeatedly. For example, in the interview in The Globe and Mail today with the high commissioner, he also points out that there is a difference between Canada's and India's definitions of, for example, “terrorism”.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think the Government of Canada, Global Affairs Canada, believes there is a time and a place for both private diplomacy and public comment. As the members of the committee are aware, private diplomacy was under way before it became known that there would be a media story and before the Prime Minister made his statement in the House.

Foreign Affairs committee  We were all surprised by the decision of the Indian government to kick out 41 Canadian diplomats. This is unprecedented in diplomatic history globally, so yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  To be fair, I cannot possibly speculate on the calculus that went into taking that dramatic decision on the part of India.

Foreign Affairs committee  No. The Prime Minister's decision and the government's decision is.... The Prime Minister, Minister LeBlanc and Minister Joly have explained, related to addressing the very sensational and unprecedented matter that the media was bringing to the Canadian public's knowledge, the importance of speaking directly to Canadians about the government's knowledge of these allegations and what it was doing about it.