Canada should stop cultivating divisive groups like pro-Khalistan elements: Former PM

Harper made this remark on Wednesday evening in Toronto, while at an event organised by the Abraham Global Peace Initiative (AGPI).

He was engaged in a conversation on stage by AGPI founder and CEO Avi Benlolo. In a column in the daily National Post on Friday, Benlolo quoted Harper as saying, “We must stop cultivating Jihadists, antisemites, Khalistanis, Tamil Tigers, and other divisive groups. When it comes to our immigration system, we are going to have to ask ourselves some hard questions about how we screen people.”

“We cannot start importing age-old hatreds onto our streets,” the former PM stated, adding, “We need to do something about this — we cannot let it continue.”

Harper was Prime Minister from 2006 to 2015, before the Conservative Party he led was defeated by his successor and Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau.

This is not the first time Harper has condemned the pro-Khalistan movement in Cabada. In July 2019, while speaking at an event organised by the Canada India Foundation in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) he said that during his tenure as PM his government had “denounced and refused all relationships with those Khalistanis and others who seek to bring the battles of the past to Canada and seek to divide the great country of India”.

As PM, Harper had established a Commission of Inquiry into the bombing of Air India flight 182, the Kanishka, by Khalistani terrorists on June 23, 1985, which claimed 329 lives. That commissioner, headed by retired Justice John Major had submitted its report on July 16, 2010

Harper said then, “The destruction of Air India Flight 182 remains the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history. It was a cowardly, despicable and senseless act.”

On the 25th anniversary of the tragedy, Harper had issued an apology on behalf of the Government of Canada for the failures that led to the terror attack.