Canada has a foreign-interference law on the books, an intelligence agency still naming India as a major threat actor, and a political fight over why the public registry meant to expose foreign influence is not yet doing that work.
That implementation gap is now the sharper edge of the India file. Conservative MP Michael Chong said Conservatives accept CSIS and RCMP assessments on India-linked foreign interference threat activity in Canada, while rejecting claims that CSIS is politically compromised or that RCMP investigations are based on “fantasy” allegations.
CSIS’ latest public assessment keeps the issue active. In its 2025 public report, tabled May 1, 2026, the agency said China, India, Russia, Iran, and Pakistan were the main perpetrators of foreign interference and espionage against Canada in 2025.
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The India section is narrow but consequential. CSIS said India has historically cultivated covert relationships with Canadian politicians, journalists, and members of the Indo-Canadian community to advance its interests. It also said that activity has included transnational repression, including “surveillance and other coercive tactics meant to suppress criticism of the Government of India and create fear in the community.”
The complication is that Ottawa’s public language has not always moved in one direction. Global News reported in February that, ahead of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s India visit, a senior Canadian official said the government believed India was no longer plotting attacks on Canadians. Global News described the comment as the first indication that Canada believed India had halted clandestine operations linked by Ottawa to a killing and other violence.
That claim quickly became politically unstable. iPolitics, citing Canadian Press, later reported that Carney declined to endorse the official’s wording, saying he “would not use those words” when asked whether he agreed India was no longer engaged in foreign interference and transnational repression in Canada.
The result is a three-way tension: CSIS still lists India among Canada’s main foreign-interference actors, a senior official reportedly gave a more reassuring assessment, and the prime minister would not fully adopt that assessment publicly. For a government trying to manage trade, security, and diaspora concerns at once, that is the policy version of stepping on three rakes at the same time.
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The missing registry deepens the problem. Bill C-70, the Countering Foreign Interference Act, received royal assent on June 20, 2024. The law created a broader foreign-interference framework, including the Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability Act, and amended national security and criminal-law statutes.
Public Safety Canada said at the time that the law was designed to help Canada detect, disrupt, and counter foreign interference threats, including threats affecting diaspora communities. It described the package as the most significant update to the CSIS Act since the agency’s founding statute came into force in 1984.
But the registry portion remains the practical test. Legal analyses published in 2026 said the foreign influence transparency regime was not yet in force and still required implementation steps, including regulations.
Without it, Ottawa is asking Canadians to rely on institutions that are either confidential, reactive, or politically contested. That gives opposition MPs more room to argue that the government passed a law but has not yet delivered the most visible mechanism in it.
India has denied Canadian allegations of interference. In response to the CSIS report, India’s Ministry of External Affairs rejected the claims as baseless and said India does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, according to Times of India.
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