Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau risks electoral defeat over his unqualified support for Sikh separatists in India, a pundit has warned.
Opposition People's Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier exclusively told Sputnik India last week that Trudeau is leveraging the Khalistani separatist agenda, and the murder of designated terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar to divert attention from other controversies.
Bernier added that Trudeau has yet to provide any evidence to support his claims of Indian responsibility for Nijjar's killing.
Trudeau’s declining popularity, coupled with ongoing controversies, has indeed placed him in a precarious political position domestically, Naval veteran and political expert K.K. Sharma stated in a conversation with Sputnik India.
Canada's PM's focus on issues like the Khalistani separatists seems to be a calculated move to secure specific voting blocs, particularly among ethnic minorities that are influential in key electoral districts.
"India's sensitivity toward the Khalistani separatist movement is well known, and Trudeau’s stance could jeopardise trade relations, diplomatic exchanges and other avenues of cooperation between the two nations," Sharma warned.
Western leaders often shift their focus to issues in the Global South when facing declining domestic popularity in a bid to project strength internationally or divert attention from interior challenges, the pundit noted.
"For Trudeau and leaders like Joe Biden, this approach can be a double-edged sword," Sharma explained. "While it may provide short-term political gains by rallying certain international allies or domestic constituencies, it risks deepening perceptions of Western interventionism in regional conflicts."
If Trudeau does not temper his actions, they could strain Canada’s relationships with key global partners like India and undermine the West’s credibility in approaching Global South issues constructively, he stressed.
That could lead to a more aloof or even hostile stance from the Global South, especially in multilateral forums, and foster a perception of Western powers as opportunistic, he concluded.