It's Time Liberals Booted Chandra Arya Out Of Caucus

"What kind of message are we sending by allowing him to stand and freely spew Anti-Sikh conspiracy theories, cast baseless suspicion on the police, and undermine his own government’s efforts..."

Jaskaran Sandhu
December 7, 2024 | 5 min. read | Opinion

Let’s start with a little story based on true events.

It’s August 12, 2024. Chandra Arya, a Member of Parliament with the governing Liberal Party of Canada, sits, beaming, looking at the Prime Minister. A private meeting in the PM’s official residence is a rare treat, especially for a backbencher with no portfolio, and Arya is clearly happy about the opportunity.

“My colleagues will be so jealous that I got this kind of audience and time with the leader. I can’t wait to post these photographs,” he thinks.

Arya knows perception is reality in politics, and if people see that he can lock in an intimate meeting like this with the most powerful man in the country - well, that must mean he’s useful to him, and he is doing something right.

They end the conversation with an official photograph, locking hands for a firm handshake and giving the photographer wide smiles.

He had to wait a week, August 27, to be exact, for the official pictures to be sent, but the wait was worth it.

After downloading the high-resolution images, Arya whispers to himself, “These are beautiful!”

He opens his social media accounts, writes a caption, and posts.

It goes viral immediately, but not for the right reasons. Colleagues and residents express grave disappointment with what they see.

“How could you even think of meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi during times like these,” they ask.

Arya’s Unofficial Tour

Arya’s tour of India, which also included a private meeting with Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s External Affairs Minister, came amidst ongoing Canadian investigations into Indian transnational repression and foreign interference.

He was posing for these pictures in India, with the same leaders accused of overseeing the use of gangs to commit violence in Canada, as his government navigated an extremely tense public feud with Modi’s government, which denied the allegations, regardless of the mounting evidence, and unleashed disinformation and attacks on Arya’s party (Liberals, not BJP, just to be clear), leader (Trudeau, not Modi, just to be clear), and country (Canada, not India, just to be clear).

Two months after Arya’s post, Canada would even expel six Indian diplomats for their role in orchestrating organized crime to conduct arsons, extortions, and homicides targeting Canadians, as described by the RCMP in an unprecedented press conference.

Arya had nothing to say about any of that.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. He did say after the damning RCMP presser exposing the extent to which India was trying to kill and undermine the Sikh Canadian community that “Unfortunately, I have yet to hear any politician or government official offer reassurance to Hindu-Canadians, many of whom feel concerned and fearful for their safety in light of recent events.”

Dangerous and Unfounded Rhetoric About Canada & Its Institutions

While Arya has largely remained silent about Indian foreign interference, he has been quick to make numerous baseless, problematic, or inflammatory comments about Sikhs. Often creating a communal divide between Sikhs and Hindus while fueling Anti-Sikh hate, contrary to Canadian interests.

For example, on November 3, 2024, he shared an edited and clipped video, sharply modifying the context and falsely claiming that Sikhs had suddenly attacked Hindu devotees inside a temple. That was not true at all. However, the video, which went viral and racked up a million plus impressions on X/Twitter, helped kickstart two days of Hindu Nationalist mob violence, including attempts to storm Gurdwaras, that would end with an emergency police Public Order and many arrests.

It gets worse.

In that same post, Chandra claims, “I begin to feel that there is a small grain of truth in the reports that in addition to Canadian political apparatus, Khalistanis have effectively infiltrated into our law enforcement agencies.”

What report is he even referring to?

He is, quite frankly, openly amplifying the conspiracy theory that Sikhs run the government, a government of which he is a member, and not only that, but the police are also “infiltrated” by Khalistanis.

How is casting that kind of suspicion, as an elected official, on the government, again, which he is part of, a major police force, and the Sikh people, not a fireable offence?

This type of rhetoric is in sync with the kind of disinformation campaigns regularly conducted out of India and far-right ecosystems against Sikhs, Canadians, and our institutions.

Follow The Precedent

There was a time when making these types of “baseless and dangerous” claims about the government was enough grounds to kick a politician out of caucus.

Such as in 2021, after Baaz revealed a radio interview that Liberal MP Ramesh Sangha had done.

"As we have made clear time and time again, we will not tolerate conspiracy theories, or dangerous and unfounded rhetoric about Parliamentarians or other Canadians," a statement from Mark Holland, chief government whip at the time, said about Sangha, after having him removed from the party for comments made regarding the government and Sikh MPs.

Does this still not apply? Chandra’s statements have been as egregious as Sangha’s were.

Then there is the fiasco from yesterday, where Chandra voted no against a unanimous consent motion to recognize the 1984 Sikh Genocide put forward by his fellow Liberal MP, Sukh Dhaliwal. Not only does he brazenly accuse Dhaliwal of threatening him, but he goes on to suggest, in a polarizing video shortly thereafter, that recognizing the Sikh Genocide is somehow…anti-Hindu. Senior members of the BJP itself, the party he went to visit back in August, have called what happened to the Sikhs a genocide multiple times. Are they also pushing an anti-Hindu agenda? Or does that just apply to Chandra’s colleagues like Dhaliwal?

I can keep giving examples of Chandra’s rhetoric that foments discord and drives polarization here in Canada; it's nothing more than an easy exercise of scrolling down his social media accounts and hyperlinking. But the real question is, why haven't the Liberals kicked out Chandra yet?

What kind of message are we sending by allowing him to stand and freely spew Anti-Sikh conspiracy theories, cast baseless suspicion on the police, and undermine his own government’s efforts to combat foreign interference without any repercussion?

As Holland said during the Sangha saga in 2021, after booting him from the party, "Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for many Canadians to experience suspicions because of their background; we all know where this can lead."

Jaskaran Sandhu hails from Brampton, Canada, and is the co-founder of Baaz. He is a Strategist at the public affairs and relations agency State Strategy and a lawyer. Jaskaran also previously served as Executive Director for the World Sikh Organization of Canada and as a Senior Advisor to Brampton’s Office of the Mayor. You can find Jaskaran on Twitter at @JaskaranSandhu_

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