Not really. You want to know the reason?
Canada stands to lose more than gain in this tit-for-tat between two countries. Here is why
www.moneycontrol.com
Suspension of visa services to Canadian citizens: The curveball Trudeau didn’t see coming
In this tit-for-tat diplomatic war, India has now responded in kind to Canada by suspending visa services “till further orders” to Canadian nationals who want to visit India. It is quite certain that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was caught on the wrong foot by the Indian move.
Why Canada Stands To Lose?
Canada may not be able to extend this tit-for-tat further, and here is why.
India sends lakhs of students to Canada each year for higher education and this money is used to subsidise the education of Canada’s domestic students. In 2022 alone,
2.2 lakh Indians flew to Canada for higher studies, a staggering 40 percent of all overseas students as per the Canadian Bureau of International Education.
If India-Canada relations deteriorate any further, Canada’s higher education could just collapse. And a byproduct of that would be that the housing and real estate sector in the newly developing areas of
Canada would be hit hard since Indian students bring close to 15 billion dollars to the Canadian economy each year. A big chunk of this money spent by students goes into renting houses which helps homeowners pay up bank loans.
In all, the contribution to these Indian students who participate in the Canadian gig economy far exceeds the income they earn while doing these jobs. These students help the Canadian government keep the minimum wage at $15-16 an hour. Canada’s Sikh population mostly from Punjab has also more than doubled in the last two decades, a big contributory factor to Canada’s human resources.
But he made it tough for himself by sticking his neck way-out by saying that they have nailed the Hardeep Singh Nijjar case and its “potential link” to the Indian diplomat.
In the coming days, if this statement is not backed by the evidence, he would have done much harm to the Liberal Party that would wish to return to office in the 2025 Canadian federal polls.
On the Indian side though, the same may not be true about Modi, whose domestic politics hinges on diametrically different issues and India-Canada relations mean not much beyond the borders of Punjab, a state anyway out of bounds for the BJP.
