Where the Maple Leaf Falls on an Altered Mosaic

Thanks to immigration, the country Mark Carney has been chosen to lead has changed over decades. New Delhi needs concerted efforts for a diplomatic reset with Ottawa

- K P NAYAR

Velupillai Prabhakaran was a threat to Canada. After the UK and China agreed in 1984 that Hong Kong would revert to Chinese sovereignty 13 years later, the 'Mountain Master', head of the dreaded, global Triad mafia, became a threat to Canada amid the mass migration of Hong Kong Chinese to Vancouver. And then there was an outspoken consul general of India in British Columbia, who had the intention to alter Canada's national profile, but could not, since his tenure in the western province was not long enough for such a big enterprise. This would have required one or two decades of all-out efforts by Indians totally dedicated to such a task.

It is simplistic to view Mark Carney's recent election as Canada's prime minister, and the rise and fall of Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre as a fight within Canada's established two-party domination, or as a routine democratic exercise. Canada has been in a silent churn for many decades before the 47th president of the US caused the cauldron, so to speak, to overflow with Trump's threat to annex his neighbouring dominion.

Underpopulated Canada's liberal policy of attracting all varieties of undesirable immigrants has caused the country to be overrun by 'outsiders' and an increasing ghettoisation of immigrant communities. The deceptive peace of the Thousand Islands, which was once emblematic of Canada, has given way to expose an ugly underbelly caused by injudicious immigration. Canada now faces severe all-round problems, which are beyond Carney or Poilievre—and his future successor—to solve. If and when they attempt to do so, it will have serious consequences for Indian immigration to Canada for many years to come, and for the hitherto-thriving educational exodus from India to Canada.