AI Generated Summary
- Free expression is not the same as consequence-free organisation of campaigns that glorify figures associated with past violence or that treat Canada as a rear base for activities banned in the country of origin.
- A Leger poll conducted in early 2025 found that only a handful of Canadian Sikhs support Khalistani separatist activities in the country, while 54 percent oppose them and 72 percent favour stricter policies to prevent foreign separatist agendas from being organised on Canadian soil.
- At the same time, the polling data and the pattern of incidents make a broader point that Canadian governments have been slow to acknowledge.
Late on the night of 28 October in Surrey, British Columbia, a car belonging to Narinder Singh Randhawa was set ablaze outside his home. A bus linked to “Team Shaheed Nijjar” parked on the same property was spray-painted. Surrey Police responded at 11:45 p.m., found the vehicle fully engulfed, and believe a suspect fled on foot. No motive has been established. The incident occurred hours after a pro-Khalistan rally; Randhawa, an associate of the slain separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar and an organiser of such events, had previously received a police “Duty to Warn” notice about threats to his life. Sikhs for Justice has called the attack terrorism allegedly directed by Indian agents and demanded an RCMP investigation. Police have made no such attribution.
Whatever the investigation ultimately finds, the episode is not an isolated act of vandalism. It is the latest visible symptom of a toxic political environment that a clear majority of Canadians have already rejected.
A Leger poll conducted in early 2025 found that only a handful of Canadian Sikhs support Khalistani separatist activities in the country, while 54 percent oppose them and 72 percent favour stricter policies to prevent foreign separatist agendas from being organised on Canadian soil. Thirty-seven percent strongly oppose the movement. These are not the numbers of a society still open to treating an overseas secessionist campaign as a harmless exercise in diaspora free speech.
The so-called Khalistan referendums organised by Sikhs for Justice are political theatre. They have no legal force in India and cannot alter the territorial integrity of a sovereign democracy. Yet they generate rallies, banners, and a steady stream of confrontations on Canadian streets. In places such as Surrey and Brampton they have been accompanied by vandalism of Hindu temples, threats against Indian diplomats, and a climate in which police issue formal warnings that certain activists’ lives may be in danger. The 2023 killing of Nijjar itself triggered years of diplomatic rupture between Ottawa and New Delhi. Under Prime Minister Mark Carney the relationship is being repaired for pragmatic reasons—trade, energy, and a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement—but the domestic residue of the earlier period remains.
Canadians are not obliged to host, or indefinitely tolerate, a foreign political project that imports India’s internal security problems onto their soil. The majority of Sikhs in Canada are not separatists; the movement has long been a vocal minority. Treating that minority as politically untouchable, or allowing its most aggressive elements to set the terms of Canada-India relations, has costs. Those costs include strained bilateral ties with a major Indo-Pacific partner, repeated security incidents, and the quiet resentment of ordinary Canadians who watch foreign flags and secessionist slogans dominate local streets while being told that objecting is somehow beyond the pale.
Free expression is not the same as consequence-free organisation of campaigns that glorify figures associated with past violence or that treat Canada as a rear base for activities banned in the country of origin. Police should thoroughly investigate the Surrey arson and prosecute whoever is responsible, regardless of motive. At the same time, the polling data and the pattern of incidents make a broader point that Canadian governments have been slow to acknowledge: large numbers of their citizens have simply had enough of this particular nonsense. They do not want their communities used as a stage for someone else’s unresolved conflict, nor do they wish to see foreign policy subordinated to the loudest diaspora faction.
A mature democracy can protect peaceful advocacy while drawing firmer lines against the fringes that generate threats, vandalism, and diplomatic damage. The Surrey fire is under investigation. The public’s patience, according to the available evidence, is not.
