In 1989, when reports surfaced that Ottawa had expelled Indian diplomats for spying, then foreign affairs minister Joe Clark did not hold a press conference to lecture the Indian government or express righteous indignation at its alleged Vienna Convention violations.
Instead, Mr. Clark rose in the House of Commons to respond to charges from the Liberal immigration critic Sergio Marchi that India’s government had engaged in “elaborate and covert operations … to discredit and destabilize the Canadian Sikh community” and manipulate Canadian officials. India had grown frustrated with Canada’s coddling of Sikh separatists and the RCMP’s botched investigation into the 1985 bombing of an Air India flight that originated in Canada.
