For the past 11 seasons, I have watched The West Block on Global TV. It airs Sunday mornings and I record it. Since 2018, Mercedes Stephenson has been the moderator. She does an excellent job! She is well educated and a great interviewer. I've noticed she is pregnant and I don't know how long she will take off, but I will miss her! Yesterday she signed off for the season and the show will return in the fall.
Yesterday's episode, if you didn't watch it, was the interview by Mercedes with Jagmeet Singh's brother and the leader of the Sikh organization in Canada regarding the threats to Sikh citizens in Canada! It was excellent interview and here is a link if you want to watch it:
https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-west-block
If you just want to read about it, here is an article I found line. It's scary and I don't believe our government is doing enough to stop this terrorism for our Sikh neighbours and friends.
In December 2023, Jagmeet Singh posted pictures of his wife holding their newborn baby. Singh, then the leader of the federal New Democrats, gazed lovingly at the baby girl as his wife, Gurkiran Kaur Sidhu, cradled her.
Not pictured in Singh’s social media accounts was the retinue of armed RCMP officers stationed outside the hospital room, there to ensure the federal politician and his young family’s safety after the national police force determined Singh’s life was under imminent threat.
“(During) the time in his life when it should be nothing but joy … he needed an armed presence to keep his family safe,” said Jennifer Howard, Singh’s long time chief of staff, in a recent interview with Global News.
“Nobody should have to go through that. That is a price too high, I think, for any politician to pay.”
Anxiety comes easily to new parents, but Singh had more to worry about than sleep deprivation or feeding schedules. Global News reported last week that Singh was notified in late 2023 that his life was in danger, and police put tight security around his homes.
Singh revealed during the recent general election that he considered stepping away from politics after receiving the warning. He would go on to lose his seat in that election, and resign as NDP leader.
What was not publicly known, and not disclosed to Singh at the time, was that he was being closely tracked by an agent believed to have ties to a transnational criminal gang and allegedly connected to activities directed by the Indian government.
Citing unnamed sources, Global reported that the agent had detailed information about Singh’s travel, daily routine and family. He allegedly had ties to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, a crime syndicate the Indian government has been accused of using to commit violence on Canadian soil.
In a public report released Wednesday, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) said it was aware of a “concerning trend” of foreign states “leveraging organized crime networks to conduct threat activity” in Canada. The intelligence agency cited India’s alleged links to violence in Canada as an example.
That report came just days after Prime Minister Mark Carney met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an attempt to renew diplomatic and trade ties between the two countries at the G7 Summit in Alberta.
Much of the conversation around foreign interference in Canada has centred around states covertly meddling in parties and politics. The idea that a foreign state would have an alleged gang member tail the leader of a major Canadian political party did not come up during Justice Marie-Josée Hogue’s recent probe into foreign interference, despite that commission having access to top-secret material.
Global News is not disclosing specific security measures sources have said the RCMP put around Singh in late 2023 and early 2024. But Howard said when police sat Singh down – a process known as a “duty to warn” when there are “credible” threats against an individual’s life – that changed the way the party approached the leader’s public events and activities.
“One of the great things about Canada … is that for the most part, politicians are pretty free to go about their business. They go grocery shopping, they go to sports games in their communities,” Howard said.
“The RCMP were very helpful, very accommodating, tried to make it so that he could do what he needed to do. But you can’t be spontaneous in those situations. Like if you want to go out, it’s planning involving multiple people.
“It was a challenge for him.”
The planning extended to knowing exactly where the exits were for any room where Singh was appearing in public. Gone were the days when Singh could ride his bike up to Parliament Hill — a fairly common sight in Ottawa before the threat was known.
“We had to do things in much more secure locations, less public access, much more (planning on) how he was going to get out of a place,” Howard said.
