ep. 9 phil gurksi

In this podcast episode, the host discusses the tensions between Canada and India. The Indian government has given Ottawa until October 10th to reduce Canadian diplomatic staff in the country to match the number of Indian diplomats. This is in response to accusations made by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about India's alleged involvement in the death of a Canadian citizen. The guest on the podcast, Phil Gursky, explains that India has a history of Hindu nationalism and religious conflicts with Muslims. He also discusses the political importance of India on the global stage and suggests that the tensions between the two countries may continue to escalate. The host mentions the Air India incident in 1985, which was the largest act of aviation terrorism before 9/11, and how Canada has been involved in Indian politics in the past. You're listening to the Bill Kelly Podcast. Here's your host, Bill Kelly. This is the Bill Kelly Podcast. Critical discussions during critical times. So good to have you with us. On this edition of the program, we want to talk about, well, some people describe it as the conundrum that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has put himself into these days. Others are calling this a global crisis of diplomatic and gigantic proportions, of course. And it all comes down to the head-butting that's going on now between Trudeau and the country of India, of course. The Indian government, in the latest, by the way, has given Ottawa until October the 10th to reduce Canadian diplomatic staff in the country to a level on par with the number of Indian diplomats. This is all because of the accusations, of course, that Justin Trudeau made in Parliament some weeks ago about the Indian government, possibly. He says they have good evidence that they were complicit in the death of a Canadian citizen in Vancouver some time ago. Now, what are the ramifications and what's going on and exactly how did we get to the point where we are? Well, to that end, our guest was the perfect choice for us, I think, to get into the meat and potatoes of this. He is Phil Gursky, President and CEO of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting. Also, of course, he has worked as a senior strategist and analyst for CSIS for many, many years. One of my favourite guests on the radio show way back in those days. Phil, it's great to hook up with you again. Thanks for joining us today. It's my honour, Bill. Again, congrats on the podcast. You couldn't have raised a more interesting topic. I'm not sure if the Cameron Orders trial is more interesting right now, the RTP officer accused of selling secrets to bad people, or, like you say, the big brouhaha between Canada and India. It should be a good conversation. There's a lot going on here. I wonder, right off the bat, is this unexpected? As some people seem to characterize it? Did you see this coming? Depends on if you saw it coming. You know, I've been commenting for years, Bill, that the government of India, under Narendra Modi, he's been the Prime Minister for the better part of a decade. He has a very, shall we say, shady past. He's a Hindu nationalist. Now, the vast majority of Indians, Indian citizens, about 80% plus, are Hindus. And you've got a large Muslim minority and a large Christian minority as well. But under Narendra Modi, he has kind of fed what's called the Hindu nationalist beast in India. Now, these are people who think that India is solely a Hindu nation. There's no room for Muslims. And just to remind people, India was ruled by, under the Mughal Empire, starting in the 1500s, was ruled by Muslim conquerors for a couple of centuries before the British came in. So there's no love lost between a lot of Hindus and Muslims historically. But what's happened is that this Hindu nationalism has also verged on extremism, in a sense that there have been attacks against Muslims. I wrote about it extensively in a 2019 book called When Religions Kill. You know, if you eat beef, you're not allowed in India. They've accused Muslims of marrying Hindu girls and forcibly converting to Islam. It's called love jihad. So we've got a government of India that expounds Hindu nationalism. There's in fact a movement now to change India's name to Bharat, which is a Hindu word meaning India. And so Modi has definitely been, you know, I think casting his weight around internally and externally. So India sees itself as a major international player who needs to be courted. He's been courted by Russia. He's been courted by China. And, of course, he's been courted by the United States and its allies. So a long answer to your short question, Bill, but I think India is becoming much, much more active on the international and regional scale. So to have something like this allegedly happen doesn't really surprise me. Again, I'm not saying it's right, that it was good, but I can't say that it caught me completely by surprise. The book you referred to, one of many great books that you've written over the years, When Religion Kills, you talk in that book essentially about how some movements, some countries, in fact, will use religion as a rationalization for carrying out some of these activities. Others still will say, well, no, it's politically motivated. What's your read on this? Because I don't know that you could separate religion and politics from some of these, India being one of those nations. I think that's a great point. I think Hindu nationalism is both. I think it really is religious. A lot of very extreme people in India will celebrate, of course, the Hindu religion, but what they will also do is they'll say, well, that building there was built over a former Hindu temple. We're going to raze it. So a lot of mosques have been attacked. There was a famous attack against a mosque about 30 years ago now, which hundreds of people died, because these internationalists say, you don't belong here. Your building is, the usurps are building. And so from that perspective, it's definitely religious in nature. But as I said earlier, it's also nationalist. So the Hindus do see themselves as the embodiment of India, which is a very multicultural society. There's something like over 100 languages spoken in India, some Indo-European, some Dravidian. I used to work as a linguist, so I used to study this stuff for years. And so you raise a good point, Bill, and when we talk about extreme action, i.e. terrorism, it's often very difficult to divide it. And look at ISIS as an example. Is it religious? Yes. Is it ideological? Yes. Is it political? Yes. And so it kind of covers all three. And so we here in Canada, under the Trudeau government, have taken away terms like Islamist terrorism and replaced them by things like religiously motivated violent extremism, which my retort is, it's not just religion. And so I think India is a good example of that, where you get this marriage between nationalism and religion to the sense that anybody who is neither Hindu nor an Indian nationalist belongs in the country. And hence we see the level of violence. But when you look at the Indian situation, especially with Modi, you've studied a lot more about him, probably forgotten more about him than I've learned so far. But I mean, I think we've all been trying to catch up with what he's all about, I guess over the last couple of years in particular. And he may well be a devout Hindu. I don't know that. I'm assuming he is. But he's not unaware of the fact that there are political ramifications to what he does as well, which he can benefit from and has, as you mentioned, for almost a decade now. This plays pretty well with his supporters, doesn't it? 100%. So I think most recently, Bill, or maybe not quite yet, but according to the estimates that I've seen, India is either now or will soon become the most populous country on earth, meaning it will be more populated than China. It carries a huge political weight. And as I said earlier, a lot of countries realize India is very important, and they're sort of lining up to be the suitor. Putin has been there. China has tried to talk to India, although the two are kind of at loggerheads right now. President Biden has courted Modi on many occasions, because India is the power in South Asia, not only from a population perspective, it's a nuclear power. Of course, they developed nuclear weapons, what, 20 or 30 years ago. It's in a very dangerous part of the world. India and Pakistan have never gotten along since the partition in 1947. It's next to Afghanistan, and that's a huge problem as well. There are territorial disputes with China in the mountainous areas. So India is one of those countries that one can't ignore, and Modi knows that. And this is why he's basically doing what he does, because he realizes the cards are in his hand. He's got the full flush here. And he's going to basically pick whomever he wants, who's going to give him the best deal for Modi and his government to go on the side of whichever suitor he picks. So, yeah, none of this is surprising. And if anything, it's probably only going to get worse. So what happens when the conflicts, the internal conflicts, spill over? I mean, I know some cynical politicians that will say, look, it's too bad what's going on in country X, India, whatever country you want to talk about. Go ahead, kill yourselves, but just leave us out of this. They want to be away from that. Just pretend it's not going on. But when that violence is transported to another country, Khashoggi is a crazy example of that, certainly. But the Air India incident that we experienced, one of the great tragedies in Canadian history that is almost forgotten by an awful lot of people right now, that's another classic example where Canada gets sucked into the vortex of what's going on with Indian politics. And this seems to be another example of that. I'm glad you raised Air India, Bill. You know, it happened almost 40 years ago, back in June of 1985. And people forget the downing of Air India by Sikh terrorists living in Canada, that's where it was planned, that's where it was executed, was the single largest act of terrorism, aviation terrorism, in history prior to 9-11. And it was born and bred completely in Canada. And the rationale behind that, of course, was a territorial dispute within India between the majority Hindus and the minority Sikhs up in the Punjab. And there were a group of Sikhs who didn't like to be, I guess, controlled or under the tutelage of the Hindu majority, and they wanted to carve out their own independent state. I mean, again, sticking with Canadian examples, you and I are old enough, Bill, to remember the FLQ. Big violence to try to create a homeland in Quebec for French nationalists here in Canada. And so India has every right to be livid that we here in Canada, under the rubric of immigration, freedom of expression, refugee policy, whatever, allowed a community here, largely in British Columbia, but also in Ontario to a lesser extent, to essentially foment this notion that, you know, dammit, we want our homeland, and because we're not getting it politically, there's no negotiated pathway to our homeland, maybe we have to use violence. Now, of course, in the context of 85, the Air India attack took place about a year after an infamous raid at a Gurdwara in Amritsar, in which hundreds of people were killed by the Indian army. Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards in October or November of that year, and Air India happened in June. So there was a context to this, and it was basically the struggle for a homeland, and the fact that there was a small minority of Sikhs who felt that we're not going to bother even trying to negotiate any kind of political settlement, we're going to use violence to get our ways. And again, that happened here amongst the Sikh diaspora in Canada. And so India could fairly say, why weren't you guys keeping track of this? Now, again, looking back that far, this was 85, Sikhs where I used to work was only a year old, had come out of the old RCMP security service. That was a painful birth, by the way. The RCMP did not really want to lose the security service back then. But the MacDonald Commission said we're going to create a civilian security agency. Most of the initial investigators were ex-RCMP who resigned essentially their commission and became civilians with CSIS. But there were growing pains with the new organization. But as far as India is concerned, they're saying, look, you didn't do your job. You should have been following these guys more closely. You should have uncovered the plot. Because the one thing, Bill, you realize, when you work in law enforcement or intelligence, as I did for more than three decades, you're only as good as your last failure. Nobody really cares when you get it right. In fact, you're often criticized for getting it right for being overzealous. And I've worked on cases where, oh, you know, this plot wasn't really a plot. You guys made it up because you wanted good headlines. But get something wrong. Fail to follow somebody, fail to deter a plot, 329 people killed in a plane off the coast of Ireland and a bag of chandlers at Narita Airport in Japan. Everyone's pointing a finger at you like, how incompetent can you be? But we're being naive about that. I mean, as I say, these are characterized in many places as internal conflicts. But when those people decide, okay, we're going to immigrate, and Canada has a very large Sikh population, as you just referenced, and we welcome these people. But I think I get the feeling sometimes, Bill, that there's this naive idea in government that says, all right, that was terrible. That's probably why they left India, because they wanted to get away from all that. They bring those ideas with them. They bring their philosophies with them. And they bring a lot of baggage with them as well. Is it naive to think that that stuff is not going to carry on in some way, shape, or form here? I mean, we've got concerns in this country about the Tamil Tigers and some of the actions that are going on. And it's happened. This is not a new phenomenon, Bill, is it? I mean, in the days of the Troubles, as we Irish say, with Northern Ireland, et cetera, the IRA had a number of people that were fundraising and running arms from the United States and Canada over to the battlegrounds in Northern Ireland and in Belfast. It happens all the time. We shouldn't be surprised that it's happening here. You know, Bill, Canada is probably a nation of immigration. You know that as well as I do. You're a Kelly. I'm guessing your Irish immigrants came here somewhere in the 19th century, the same as my wife's family came from Ireland in the 1860s. I'm third generation Eastern European Canadian. My grandparents emigrated from Ukraine and Poland during the First World War. And I think Canadians, we often like to sell to the rest of the world that immigration works, that we've done it well. We've got, you know, out of 40 million Canadians, how many were born abroad? We're all from somewhere, with the exception, of course, of the First Nations. And I think we see ourselves as a poster child for how it can work well. But you raise a really good point. And I always find something interesting about diasporas. So people who leave country X to go to country Y, and I've heard from many people tell me this, when they leave their country of birth, it's kind of like it becomes frozen in time. And they come to this new country, and their view of the homeland, let's say they moved here in 1950, is their homeland in 1950. 40 years later, the homeland has moved on. People have, you know, adopted other issues. They've forgotten things. They've let some things go. But as far as the diaspora is concerned, it's still 1950. And I think that's a really good explanation for some, and I stress some within the Sikh diaspora, which I think is a little more than a million or close to a million here in Canada, very, very few advocate violence for an independent Punjab. But everything that I've read, now I've got to be careful with the sources, because a lot of them are Indian media. And I did a ton of Indian media linked to the killing of Najjar. And they could definitely tell the bias, what they were trying to get me to say kind of thing. But from what I've read, largely in the Punjab, so that part of India which is supposed to become an independent homeland for the Sikhs, nobody in the Punjab is advocating violence for this. And, in fact, they've almost kind of said, well, been there, done that, got the T-shirt, we're probably not going to get a homeland, so we'll just stay within India. Whereas the diaspora here in Canada, they haven't learned that lesson. And they haven't forgotten that this is what they're fighting for. So I'm not trying to tar all diasporas with the same brush. That would be unfair. But, you know, Bill, we had Armenian terrorism here in Canada, as I talked about in the Peaceable Kingdom back in the early 80s. And these are Armenian Canadians. Armenian Canadians who, in one case, assassinated the Turkish military attache, and in a second, stormed the Turkish embassy in Ottawa to punish Turkey for the 1916 genocide of Armenians. So, think of this. You've got a diaspora living in Canada. 75 years later, it's still trying to carry out acts of violence to punish Turkey. Well, actually, the Ottoman Empire, which predated Turkey, for what it did against its great-great-grandfathers kind of thing. And I think, unfortunately, that's what happens with diasporas sometimes, is that they simply lose the context, and they don't change in the same way the populations back home change. And I think that's what's happening here in Canada. How does a population, a Canadian population, an American population, whatever the case may be, how do they make these distinctions, though? I mean, the justification for the murder in B.C. that seems to be the central focus of what's going on here, was the Indian government, even though Modi doesn't seem to want to say it, but his people are saying, this guy was a terrorist. He was plotting to do terrible things in India. But, without trying to sound too flippant, I think you and I have talked in the past, I mean, one person's terrorist and another person's freedom fighter. How do you make that distinction? It's in the eyes of the beholder, almost, isn't it? It is. And, you know, in this case, so Mr. Najjar, obviously, at a minimum, he was a Sikh activist. So, he clearly was still in favor of an independent Sikh homeland in the Punjab. Did he advocate violence? I don't know. Did India have any information slash intelligence suggesting that they did? If that's the case, it should have been shared with Canada. So, the way that it works, Bill, is that countries like India, we actually share intelligence with India. So, let me rephrase that, because I can't betray secrets. We share intelligence with countries like India. So, what happens in Canada is that CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, has what's called a Section 17 arrangement under its legislation where it can share intelligence with any law enforcement or security agency anywhere in the universe as long as it gets signed off by the Global Affairs Minister and the Public Safety Minister. So, you're aware of the Five Eyes. We talk about the Five Eyes a lot in this show, you know, the Anglo Alliance. And, that's obviously, that's sort of the cat's ass. That's the gold standard of intelligence. But, we share information with all kinds of countries to help keep ourselves safe. And, if we have information that relates to, you know, Indian or Fijian or whatever security, we'll share it with them as well because we don't want people to die in terrorist attacks or be subject to espionage cases, et cetera, et cetera. What I'm saying, why I'm giving that background is that, you know, there likely is in place an arrangement whereby India could say, hey, here's what we have on Mission Najjar from our sources, from our methods. Can you please confirm or back us up or tell us we're wrong kind of thing? I don't know if that happened. I don't know what India would have shared with us. But, clearly from the open source that I've read, India thinks quite clearly that Mission Najjar was in fact a Sikh terrorist advocating violence in India for the creation of an independent Punjab. And, let's not forget that, you know, way back with Air India, Air India was, of course, a national airline. That's why they targeted it. But, there were attacks also in B.C. against Indian diplomats back in the 1980s. So, I guess the fear would have been, you know, is it possible that Indian, whether they're diplomats, let's say there's a consulate in Vancouver, for example, or Indian nationals might be targeted by Sikhs because of this notion of the desire for a Sikh homeland. So, I think at the end of the day, what we need to know, I'm not sure we'll ever know it, was what did India think it had against Mission Najjar? What was it confident it had? And, when we talk intelligence, Bill, we're often talking, you know, confirm reliability, believe reliability, unknown reliability. How sure was the intelligence that India had on this individual? Did they share that intelligence with Canada? And, if they did, what did Canada do with it? I'm doubtful you or I or my cat's ever going to know this because it's obviously very classified information. But, it seems to me that India had what it saw as legitimate concerns and probably would have shared those concerns with Canada. Now, that doesn't excuse what India is accused of doing, but it does indicate that, in fact, India would have had an issue with Mission Najjar that it wanted Canada to be aware of. Do we evaluate their intelligence, though, and simply say, well, that's hogwash? I mean, Vladimir Putin's gone around killing a number of people in the U.K. over the last couple of years by poison. Yes, they're advocates, freedom fighters, et cetera, if you want, but a lot of them are journalists who are just expressing opinions supportive of those people that they feel are being oppressed, and I understand that. And, we don't know how far this goes. I mean, is it even up to us to make those evaluations? Would we just take their information and their intelligence at face value? Rarely do you take intelligence at face value. So, you know, Bill, when they talk about real estate, they say there's three important things about real estate, right? Location, location, location. Well, in intelligence, it's corroboration, corroboration, corroboration. What you need to do in intelligence is to take a piece of information, you can assess it as being believable or completely bonkers, and I've seen both, but what you try to do is to corroborate that particular fact or that particular allegation with your own sources, completely independent of the original sources that you were presented with. So, what that means is that at CSIS, what it could have done is say, okay, we've been told by the Indians X, Y, or Z about Missing in the Jar, can we confirm any of this information from our own sources, assuming that, in fact, Canada still has an active investigation against the possibility of Sikh violence here in Canada. And I can tell you, Bill, going back to the 1980s, I was at CSC at the time, so I was doing Sikh intelligence, not human intelligence, but, you know, the Sikh investigation was the number one counterterrorism investigation in the 1980s, which means that CSIS would have been doing investigations within the community, they would have had probably human sources, they probably would have had what we call Section 21 warrants, which is a federal court warrant to intercept communications, so they would have been trying to figure out who's who in the zoo, within the Sikh community in lower mainland British Columbia, who are the problematic characters, who are the ones advocating violence, and how serious are they? Because, of course, at the end of the day, you don't want something to blow up, you don't want people to die, so CSIS would have said, you know, we've got X, Y, or Z against, you know, Phil Gursky, and then give that up to the RCMP to do their own independent investigation, and maybe lay charges. But in the world of intelligence, your sources are only good as the parties that give them to you, and so it really is incumbent on any intelligence service to try to independently verify the information that is given. We know India has an agenda, we know Russia has an agenda, we know Canada has it, the U.S. had an agenda, and any country that takes something at face value without testing it independently is a fairly foolish country, in my view. So, and we've got players, some of them very dedicated, some of them very good at their jobs, when it comes to gathering and analyzing intelligence, as it was part of your job for a number of years, but then politicians get involved. And one of the overriding questions, aside from the, you know, opinions about the terrible, you know, assassination of this individual, is why in God's name would the Prime Minister make a public statement about this in the House of Commons, knowing that it's going to do nothing except stir up a bunch of shit, that not just the Canadian Parliament is dealing with now, but the other five eyes. You know, Biden was here not too long after that. I got to wonder behind closed doors, if he just went and sat down with the Prime Minister and said, look what you've done to me. I mean, they didn't say you shouldn't have done that. They wouldn't do that publicly to an ally. But the strongest message we got was from Secretary of State Blinken, who said, well, those who are responsible need to be held accountable. That's it. He didn't say, yeah, we've got that same intelligence. Nobody wants to piss off Modi in India right now, as you say, for economic reasons more than anything else. Exactly. I'm going to ask this in two ways, Bill. Which I don't consider myself to be all that cynical. The cynic in me says, OK, Justin Trudeau has just gotten back from the G20 in India. You remember that trip, right? It was a disaster for Canada. Modi was caught pointing his finger at Justin and giving him shit for something. His plane didn't take off. Was there also another wardrobe malfunction? Did he dress up like an idiot again, trying to be a Canadian? I don't think that. He's done it historically, Bill. And he said, well, you know, I look like an idiot, and I'm going to get back at you and make you look like an idiot kind of thing. So that's the cynic in me. The more serious side of me says, this was a very unfortunate incident from a couple of perspectives. First and foremost, you do not disclose intelligence that's gathered in a very secret manner publicly. I know that you're a former journalist. You want to know more rather than less. You obviously want more information. But when it comes to intelligence, the two things that anyone who works in intelligence is sworn to protect are sources and methods. So when the prime minister says, we have intelligence from X, Y, or Z indicating that Indy was behind this, he has essentially broken the sources and methods code. I would almost even cheekily say that Justin Trudeau should have been arrested and charged under the Security of Information Act. Same way Cameron Ortiz has just been done from the RCMP, because he, I might use the prime minister, I guess he can make up the rules as he goes along. But the second part that I also add to this, and you mentioned this, is that he mentioned we have allied information from the five eyes. We're talking the Americans here. Most likely. Possibly the Brits, but most likely the Americans. So the prime minister of Canada has just told the world in parliament for the world to hear that we had American intelligence linking India to the assassination of Hussain Najjar and we're going to expose this publicly. Did he ask the Americans first if that was okay? Maybe. But I'm guessing the answer is no. And this is very dangerous for Canada, Bill, from the perspective that, yes, we're a member of the five eyes. We've been a member since the 1950s. It is, as I said earlier, the gold standard of intelligence sharing. But we are a net importer of intelligence. The Americans have far more resources in terms of financial and people than we do. When I worked at CSE from 83 to 2000 before I went to thesis, we were about 1,000 strong. And NSA, the National Security Agency, which was the American equivalent, was 100,000 strong. So, I mean, do the math. They can do things we're simply not capable of. And so the vast majority of intelligence that we share with clients in Ottawa came from the Americans. It didn't come from Canada. So if you're willy-nilly sharing information that's gained from intelligence sources from an ally without seeking prior authorization, what's going to stop that ally from saying, you're no longer trustworthy with our intelligence. You're disclosing it to people that are not clear and have no need to know. We're going to cut you off. Now, I don't think we're on the verge of being cut off from American intelligence. But I'm thinking a lot of people in very senior positions in the United States are saying, can we trust Canada anymore? Because we have a prime minister that doesn't play by the rules. And if they decide to either cut us off or cut back the intelligence we get, it's Canada that's going to suffer. Because like I said, we get a lot more intelligence from the flybys than we give to the flybys. So I'm kind of hoping, not confidently, that the prime minister has thought about this before he stood up in the House of Commons and made his allegations. But this is not the first time those accusations and that mindset has crossed in this relationship we have between Canada and the United States. We were talking, I guess back early in the summer, about the United States Intelligence Services basically admitted that, listen, we've supplied Canada with a lot of status, a lot of information about China. And they're not doing anything. They're still running police stations over there. They're still doing this. They're still doing that. The government just doesn't seem to want to pay any attention to this. And now once again they're saying, OK, now he's done it, but he's done it publicly. You're not supposed to do that. There's got to be a lot of skepticism down in Washington right now to say, as you say, do we trust these guys or do we give them whatever we can? But they're not a trusted partner anymore. I know the prime minister and the president have had a number of discussions about this right now. It was, what, about two weeks after this whole thing broke that Biden, as you say, welcomed Modi to Washington. This is the emerging number one economy in the world. They're almost there. It's the most populous country in the world. You don't want to make an enemy of India right now, especially when Putin's trying to cozy up to them and the Chinese are trying to cozy up to them right now. Biden certainly doesn't want the U.S. to be on the outside looking in. And, you know, this is only going to, I would think, throw fuel onto the fire right now. Because Modi, you're absolutely right, I think, Phil, this guy knows how to play the political game and he knows how to play the international game. And he's basically got everybody on a string right now saying, well, who wants me, you know, and what are you going to do to please me? And Trudeau, I guess, didn't get that email. You know, Bill, we often, we here in Canada, we brag a lot about the undefended border, longest undefended border in the world between us and the Americans, the fact that we're the closest allies on the planet, you know, we vacation in each other's countries. I mean, you know, we're the same age bracket, Bill. I remember going to Detroit Tiger games as a kid with my dad. And you'd get to Windsor and you'd cross the border. And, you know, you could get to the U.S. border and there'd be a guy saying, how you doing, boys? And, you know, what's your plans? Want to see the Tigers? Oh, I hope they win. Have a good day. No, no way. No passport information. No, it doesn't have any ID, right? That's the way things work. Now it's changed, obviously, in the post 9-11 period. Some would say maybe rightly so. But I think sometimes we bank on the fact that we think the Americans really need us. And I don't know if that's true anymore. So during the Cold War, they did need us because of our geography. I mean, I had people who worked for me at CSE who spent time in Alert up on Ellesmere Island. There was a listening station we had up there, the Canadian military, and it was an important military station because you could see over the pole to the Soviet Union and see what the Soviets were up to. You remember the dew line? The early warning sign that went all across from Alaska to Labrador. And we manned those stations in the event the ICBMs were coming over the pole in the event of a nuclear war. And so Canada was seen as an incredibly important ally. Okay, let's fast forward to 2023. We have the prime minister who admits publicly that not only are we not meeting the 2% spending floor for NATO, we have no intention of ever reaching there. We're at 1.3% or something. So from a military perspective, we're a joke. We just cut another billion dollars from the defence budget in the most recent call. So Canada's not pulling its weight militarily. Again, we tell ourselves this myth that the Canadian military is a wonderful thing, and they are. I've got many friends who work for the Canadian military. They've done amazing things, but they're doing it on a shoestring budget. We can't afford planes, we can't afford submarines. So it pushed Cambridge up. And I don't think it's going to get there. But if you're Joe Biden, and you're looking at India under Modi, 1.4 billion people, as you said, probably the third biggest economy on the planet. Becoming the most populous nation. Extremely influential in the area. A country you can't afford to piss off. Versus Canada. 40 million people. Yeah, you know, they've got nice forests where they can go, you know, dog off and park in the summer. Trade, obviously, is very important between the two countries. But it's not the end all and the deal. They're not helping us militarily. They're not an important member of NATO. Their intelligence, yeah, it's good. But it's replaceable. It doesn't mean, you know, what we're getting from the Brits, for example. And, you know, if Biden were actually forced into a choice, which I don't think he will be. But, you know, let's play this to the nth degree, Bill. If it came to flipping a coin between courting India and courting Canada in 2023, what do you think Joe Biden would decide? Who's more important? I think he's already decided, hasn't he? Yeah, well, maybe he has. Maybe he decided that India is a much more important partner for the United States than Canada is. He's probably also thinking Canada doesn't have any choice. I mean, we have a 4,000-kilometer border, but they're not going anywhere. Our economies are linked and will be public until the end of time. We don't have to spend a lot of time on Canada because we're kind of assured that they're not going to reject us because they simply can't afford to. So I'm going to play my cards in India's favor now and not in Canada's. And that has huge consequences for what happens, if anything, in putting pressure on India to fess up if, in fact, they're involved in the murder of Najjar. If Modi tells Biden, don't go there, I'm wondering what Joe would do. I think he's saying, okay, we won't. We, as spectators of this whole game that's going on, the international game, Bill, I guess try to look at things in absolutes, don't we? These are the good guys. These are the bad guys. Those are the bad guys. Russia, bad, bad. North Korea, bad. Iran, bad, bad people. And then you've got the United States. You've got the U.K. You've got Australia. And there's not going to be any crossbreeding going on here. Those are bad guys, and they don't like the good guys, and the good guys don't like the bad guys. But you look at India, and they ask Modi, well, which one are you? And he says, I don't know yet. Make me an offer. And that's essentially what he's saying. You know, they're one of the biggest, I guess, purchasers of arms from Russia, supplying arms for Russia, because they use Russian oil. I mean, they're feeding the war effort in Ukraine right now. So, oh, they're bad guys. No, no, no, no, they're not, because they've got these other treaties going on as well. So they're a bit of a conundrum here when it comes to this. But to your point, a U.S. president, whether it's going to be Biden or anybody, is going to say, we need India. You know, we've got to play footsie with Modi. India is not going over to the other side. They're going to be there. They can be a minor player, but they're not going to go and start courting with Russia or North Korea or any of those other nations. There's an awful lot of others in Africa, as you and I have talked about in the past, that are up for grabs right now in this international chess game right now. So what choice has the U.S. got but to simply not necessarily say Trudeau was wrong, not saying this is false information. They probably know it's true information, but they're not going to get in this game. No way are they going to do anything like this. I don't want to make this into a sexual podcast, Bill, but you're familiar with the book Fifty Shades of Grey. It was a big thing a couple of years ago, right? As far as I'm concerned. I've never heard of it. Well, it's on the shelf behind you right now. Nobody ever admits reading that book. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. A friend of a friend of mine told me about it. Exactly. I have a friend. I see international diplomacy as Fifty Shades of Grey. I think that, you know, on certain issues, country A and country B are very close. On other issues, not so much. And I think, was it a British politician? I forget. Was it before the Second World War? He was asked, what keeps you up at night or what bothers you? And it's interest, dear boy, interest. And interests change over time. And I think that for the longest time, we could have ignored India. It wasn't important. I mean, think back. You know what? When we were kids, Bill, I mean, India had this massive famine in the 60s and 70s. And it was only through the Great Green Revolution that India even survived as a country. But look where it is now 40 or 50 years later. It's a major world power. It's a nuclear power. And I think that nations like the United States, like Russia, like China, when they look in the crystal ball, they're asking themselves these questions. Who are the partners I need right now? Who are the ones I can set aside? Who are the ones I can accept as given, like Canada? And where do I want to put my efforts right now? So the points you've raised, I think, are very, very good. In that, I think a leader like Biden is probably being advised by his people, don't piss Modi off. Because if you do, we may push him into the Russia orbit. And you're right, they are buying Russian oil, which is helping to support their war in Ukraine. We know that China, with its so-called Belt and Road Initiative, is buying people's loyalty all across the planet, including some countries in Europe, unbelievably. And I think this is a great chess game going on internationally. And true powers, like the United States, like the European Union, are making very, very careful equations or calculations when it comes to who they want to deal with and who's important for them economically, politically, diplomatically, internationally, etc. And I think Canada, let's face it, I mean, I love this country to death, but we're very much a middle power, if even that nowadays. And I don't think that we're nearly as important as people think we are. Wasn't it that phrase that came out, Bill, in the chapter Indigo, that the world needs more Canada? Remember that? Came out in the early 2000s. Do you think anybody gives a shit about that right now? I don't think they do. No, but it played well at the time. Obama used that same phrase when he addressed Parliament a few years ago when he was still President. I think Biden brought it up again, too. It's a nice little catchphrase to say, yeah, we're buddies. Hey, come on, you're not one of these guys. A little head roll, but there's a concern here about the geopolitics of all this. And just to emphasize your point, I read an essay, I think it was in the Sunday Times a couple of months ago now, about this game that's going on and who's going to side with what side, and this talk that you and I have talked about, too, about some of the Chinese ambitions in the South China Sea these days. They're kind of watching what's going on in Ukraine. But the professor that wrote this piece essentially was saying, yeah, the Chinese haven't given up on that, but they're more concerned about pissing off Modi. They don't care much about what the United States is going to do. They already know what their reaction is going to be, but they don't want Modi to start thinking, hey, you're on my doorstep here, buddy. So that's why they seem to have held off at that. And I think there's a pretty strong argument for that. And there have been. There are some serious territorial disputes between China and India up in the Himalayas. And, Jack, it's actually a hot war. Recently, I think a couple of Chinese soldiers and a dozen or two dozen Indian soldiers were killed in a clash between the two armies. And so we're a disputed territory, like around Nepal, southern the Himalayas. And the points you make, I think, are very good ones, is that it is a game of international chess or calculus where people are deciding, you know, what is in my greatest interest as a country? And, you know, India is becoming much bolder on the international stage. It's not just the allegations of the killing here in Canada. There have been other countries with similar allegations by Indian security forces, i.e. their intelligence service, either financing, sponsoring, or even carrying out. I don't know where exactly on the spectrum it falls. So India simply cannot be ignored. And some would say, well, you know, we're going to deal with them. We're going to take a moral stand. We're not going to deal with India because they do nasty things. Well, morality doesn't get you very far. I mean, I wish it did, but in the realities of 2023, in terms of geopolitical, there are a lot of very difficult questions that are out there, and the answers aren't all that clear. And I think that, you know, again, we here in Canada, I mean, like I said, I'm a very patriotic Canadian, but I just shake my head sometimes. And by the way, Bill, I have sources telling me that allies are asking those questions about Canada. Is this the Canada that we can trust? Is this the Canada that has got our back? And, you know, as I say to people, the one side I love to put out there is at the end of the Second World War, Canada had either the third or the fourth largest navy in the world. Do you have any idea where we are right now? I think we're next to Lesotho or something, which doesn't have a navy. I mean, it's just embarrassing what we have. We don't have helicopters. We don't have aircraft. We don't have ships. And so the nation has fallen greatly in terms of, from an international perspective, of what it's capable of doing. And people have sat up and taken notice. And, you know, when you're trying to do those decisions at the end of the day as to what you need to go forward for your... Every nation has its own interests. And if you're lucky, your interests and someone else's interests will verge, especially if the other country is a lot bigger like the United States. If we have the same things in mind, that's great. But what happens when the interests diverge and the American interests are not ours anymore, and they go in a different direction? We don't have a lot of bargaining power at that point, given our lack of spending on our military, the lack of our ability to work in international fora. And so we shouldn't be surprised when Biden and or whomever decide, I'm going to start maybe, you know, putting a few bucks in this corner instead of the ones I have historically. I think it's inevitable, unfortunately. When we were young, you and London, me and Hamilton, you know, the biggest threat that we had, and I don't know if you ever went through this, the school exercise of when the sirens went off, get under your desk. It was nuclear war, which, as you said a few minutes ago, the missiles coming over, you know, the Arctic and landing in Hamilton and all over the place. I mean, it scared the shit out of us, as it should have. I mean, you know, when you see bomb shelters being built in your neighborhood, that was the threat. And, you know, crew staff at the United Nations banging the desk with a shoe, we will bury you. That was then, this is now. And I'm not suggesting that there is no nuclear threat. Certainly there is. But the tool that they're going to use to beat you over the head with now is economic. It's not with missiles. And what Modi can say to us, to Biden, to Putin, is not I'm going to invade you. It's I'm going to squeeze you until you guys yell uncle, because they can do that economically. China can do that. They're doing it to us now. And that seems to be the new reality. And I'm not so sure that our government understands that, that, you know, there are ramifications to it. And it doesn't mean that, you know, the Chinese ships or an Indian army is going to start invading. They're going to squeeze us economically. And it hurts when they do that, because we, you know, we can't defend ourselves to the point that we should be able to economically. Let me give you two recent examples, Bill. I think I'd point out your point is well taken. A couple of years ago, the Australians started raising criticism over China's treatment of the Uyghurs up in Xinjiang, probably, which is in the Northwest. They're Muslims. I wrote about it extensively in my book, The Lesser Jihad, back in 2017. And China said, excuse me? You're criticizing our internal policy against terrorism? Well, chuck you, Farley. And the Chinese suspended all of their imports of Australian coal. It's one of their largest. China still burns coal, if you wouldn't believe. One of their largest exporters was Australia. You know what that did to the Australian economy? It was huge. And so Australia had to be very careful in saying what it did against China for fear of pissing it off, because it affected economically. Closer to home, do you remember when a former president whose last name rhymes with a dump decided he was going to rip up the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade agreement? What would that have done to our economy? I'm not saying Biden would do that or, God forbid, Trump gets in for a second term. But, you know, these interests do change very, very quickly. And I think that we can't rest on our laurels, I guess is what I'm trying to say here. We can't go on the assumption that the alliances that we've built over the past 75 years since the end of the Second World War are going to last forever if we don't pull our weight militarily, economically, diplomatically, politically. What you did for me in 1945 doesn't cut a lot of weight with people. That's ancient history. Good Lord. Your parents and my parents, you know, my father fought with the Air Force Second World War. Nobody remembers those days anymore. I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing. We remember a state coming up. But the point is that if you're saying, yes, but I did this for you in 1945, the response is, yeah, but what are you doing for me in 2023? And I think that there is this tendency to say, well, we paid the price and the benefit for us is that because we paid the price once, we're going to be okay until the rest of time. And the answer is, no, we're not going to. And I think Canada has become much weaker on the international stage of late. We've seen the debates here in Canada too about things being changed, and I think people are becoming tired of hearing it from us, especially when we go lecturing. When we go into India and tell India, don't do this and don't do that. I think that feels when you go into another person's country and say, oh, by the way, your system is all wrong. Who the hell are you to come into my backyard or through my front door, rather, and lecture me on what I should or should not be doing? You know, remember back in South Africa, Bill? When we gave South Africa shit for apartheid, what did the South Africans say? Don't you have an indigenous issue in Canada where you're locked in residential schools and expires dead over a period of a better part of a century? So this holier-than-thou attitude that a lot of Canadian officials seem to have is not winning us any friends internationally. We could do this all day. As a matter of fact, one of these days we just might. I want to call this the first phase of a number of discussions you and I have always enjoyed, these discussions and your insight into this, Bill. Your podcast, by the way. Our listeners can check out your podcast as well. Where do they find that? Sure, so I have two podcasts. One is called Canadian Intelligence A, and there's a story behind that. My wife's sister, Mary, my sister-in-law, I was looking for a new name. It used to be called an Intelligent Look at Terrorism, but I wanted to cover more than terrorism. So she said, call it Canadian Intelligence A, CIA for short. I thought it was cute. And those are my conversations with people around the world on a whole host of issues of what's happening, largely in terrorism, but not strictly. And the second one are what I call quick hits, or shorter ones just with me where I expound on the topic. In fact, I'm recording one today on why people are ignoring the threat of left-wing terrorism, which seems to be forgotten or ignored by a lot of people. Anyhow, all the podcasts are free of charge. They're on my website, borealisthreatnerisk.com. Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting is my firm. So just go to the website. All the podcasts and blogs are there. And I just want to say thank you, Bill. I mean, like I said, you and I, we go back a ways. We do. I always love being a guest on your show. I thought you asked some very, I think, profound questions, and we were able to get into some topics to an extent. And again, congratulations on your new podcast, and I'm absolutely honored that I'm one of the first guests on your new podcast, and I wish you every success going forward. Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be doing this, and I'm thrilled to be able to continue these discussions on these very, very important, I think, topics that need to be discussed. You know, I say we've got to wrap it up, and now I'm going to talk for another 10 minutes. So I've got to discipline Bill. But the whole thing is, you know, the reputation of Canadians used to be, I don't really pay much attention to international politics. If there's one takeaway from our discussion today and what's happened here over the last couple of years that we have been discussing is we better open our eyes to what's going on in the world because you're either a player or a victim. And I tell you which one I want to be in situations like this, and it's about time that our political leaders understood that as well. And don't rest on your laurels because nobody cares. Exactly. We'll talk again real soon. Pleasure having you on. Thanks again, Bill. Bill Garris from Borealis Threat, and check out this podcast. And by the way, we'll put a link up when we post this later on today for yours as well. That's it for this edition of the Bill Kelly Podcast, Critical Discussions in Critical Times. Until next time, take care. This podcast was brought to you by Rebecca Wissons and her team at Wissons Law. Rebecca Wissons is a 20-time winner of the Hamilton Reader's Choice Awards for their exceptional client care and legal practice specializing in personal injury, car accidents, accidental falls, and wilson estates. Now, if you or a loved one have been seriously injured or if you want to make sure that your family is taken care of for the future with a will and powers of attorney, call Rebecca Wissons, 905-522-1102 for a free consultation. When life happens, you can rely on Rebecca Wissons and Wissons Law. And trust me, Rebecca is my wife. I don't know what I'd do without her. That's Wissons Law, 905-522-1102 for a free consultation. Subscribe to my sub stack for timely news updates and commentary straight to your inbox. Let's keep the conversation going. I'd love to hear your thoughts on today's episode. Let me know what you think we should be talking about next by contacting me through my website at www.billkelly.co. Thanks for tuning in. This is Bill Kelly. Until next time, you take care.