Peel families with loved ones stranded in India frustrated by lack of federal help; government says some of the 21,000 Canadians there won't get assistance

Mississauga and Brampton residents with family members stuck in India after the country closed its borders say they are waiting for more answers from the federal government on when their loved ones will be able to get back to Canada. But the government has a frank message for many families.

"We are doing everything in our power to bring the largest number of Canadians home as quickly as possible," a Global Affairs Canada spokesperson told The Pointer Thursday. "Unfortunately, it will not be possible to ensure the return of all Canadians who wish to come home."

The iconic boulevard into Delhi's India Gate is deserted under the country's lockdown

The Indian government announced this week it was sealing the country’s border and instituted a total lockdown to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. The decision has also impacted at least 21,000 Canadian residents, according to the federal government's estimate, many of them in Punjab, now unable to return home. 

Peel Region is home to tens of thousands of South Asians. Over 260,000 Brampton residents identify as South Asian along with more than 165,000 in Mississauga according to the most recent census data. While not all South Asian-Canadians trace their roots to India, the vast majority do, according to the census data. 

Those numbers include members of Ritu (Ri) Sihota’s family. Sihota, who lives in Mississauga, has contacted government officials for help to get her family — three grandparents and her father — out of India and on a plane back to Canada. Beyond words of encouragement, Sihota has not received any concrete assistance from government officials or any indication when her family will be able to return. Instead, Sihota says she has had to navigate bureaucratic channels with little guidance from the federal government on finding a solution.

“There’s been a lack of support from the [federal] government,” Sihota says. “They’re not really saying anything about thousands of Canadian citizens stranded in India.”

Frustrated, Sihota has created an online petition addressed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other senior government figures as well as her local MP and other politicians, beseeching them to help repatriate her separated family members. The petition has since received over 8,000 signatures and support from Canadians also trying to get their family out of India.

"I am not going to sit around to let those trapped in India be a second thought of this government. I’m going to take action,” states Sihota’s petition. “I’m going to fight for every single person that is stranded.”

Sihota told The Pointer she’s reached out multiple times to local MPs with little success. Only Mississauga—Streetsville MP Gagan Sikand and Brampton East MP Maninder Sidhu personally responded, but could not offer much in the way of assistance. Sikand has been in touch with Sihota but beyond offering some encouragement that the Indian and Canadian governments are working on a solution, has not been able to offer more than that.

Mississauga—Streetsville Liberal MP Gagan Sikand

In an email to The Pointer, Global Affairs Canada spokesperson Angela Savard said, "We are aware that Canadians and permanent residents who had flight bookings to depart India between March 22-29 have not been able to re-book their flights. As per Prime Minister Trudeau's recent announcement under these extraordinary circumstances, the Government of Canada is working with Canadian airlines and foreign governments to provide access to commercial flights for Canadian travellers who want to return home."

She encouraged travellers and families to go to to the government's Registration of Canadians Abroad webpage to receive important updates. You can click here for the site.

"We would like to remind Canadians that we have set up an Emergency Loan Program providing up to $5,000 to help those Canadians stuck abroad due to the pandemic." Click here to access the loan webpage.

Balli Bolla, a Mississauga-based mortgage broker has also contacted several local MPs in Mississauga and Brampton and received similar advice but little indication there is any action forthcoming to get her parents who are visiting Punjab back to their home in Brampton. Thousands of expat Indians who are now citizens or permanent residents of Canada visit India during the winter months each year and are even sometimes referred to as snowbirds.

Indian police patrol the usually jam-packed roadways to enforce the lockdown

In an email correspondence shared by Bolla, she is informed negotiations are underway between Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne and his Indian government counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, to “redress this situation”, but no other details were provided.

According to the emails, stranded individuals have been advised to register with Registration of Canadians Abroad (ROCA) and wait for notice from Canada’s High Commission for India on when they might be able to leave. In the case of medical issues, the government advises to follow medical advice from local authorities as well as the World Health Organization.

“We’ve been calling every single MP in the area,” said Bolla.

According to Sihota, her grandparents were supposed to return to Canada on March 28 following a six month stay in the city of Jalandhar, located in Punjab, where many of Peel’s South-Asian community trace their roots to. Her father left for another part of India in early March, planning to meet up with the rest of the family. They are all over the age of 70, requiring assistance to travel, and wanted to get back to Canada as quickly as possible with the pandemic worsening.

Though the the world’s second largest country, with almost 1.4 billion residents, reports less than 700 current cases of COVID-19, experts there say there are likely tens of thousands of infected residents and after public health officials and some researchers projected an unfathomable possibility of as many as 500 million cases by the summer, the Indian government took extraordinary measures this week, ordering a complete shutdown for three weeks. A lack of testing is the reason for the gap between reported cases and the likely reality. India's large underclass, with more than half a billion people who live in poverty without proper access to healthcare, also makes it difficult to get an accurate picture.

After Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced India was banning all international flights as of March 22 in response to COVID-19, Sihota, at home in Mississauga, frantically tried to reschedule her family’s flights to an earlier date. She had managed to book a flight for early April, but with India announcing a 21-day lockdown, as authorities crack down on anyone who defies the ban, Sihota is concerned her family members could be turned back if they attempt to travel to get to the airport. 

While Germany, Israel, Poland and Russia have launched repatriation efforts and organized flights to get their citizens home from locked-down India, Canada has not yet done the same. The Canadian government did intervene in the case of hundreds of stranded travellers in Peru and Morocco when they sealed their borders due to the global pandemic. As recently as a few days ago, the Canadian government announced it was flying residents from out of those countries as well as Spain, with plans for more flights in the coming days.

“Why are Russia and Germany able to get their people out of India but Canada can’t?” said Bolla.

According to Bolla, her parents had left for India in February and were supposed to come back at the end of March. When Prime Minister Trudeau announced Canada was closing its borders, Bolla tried to reschedule the return flight for earlier, managing to get one for March 24. But that flight was cancelled after India enacted its travel ban.

Bolla says she was able to reschedule the flight for early April with a Turkish air carrier, but again the flight was cancelled. A subsequent re-booking this time with Air Canada has also been cancelled.

“It’s not like we’re not trying to get them out of there,” said Bolla. “We’re trying everything we can.”

Bolla says she also has a niece who went to India to scatter her late grandfather’s ashes, well before COVID-19 quarantines locked down Indian borders, as well as an aunt and uncle. All of them tried to leave the country, but couldn't get a flight, she says.

Asked for an update on when the stranded Canadians might be able to return home, an Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) spokesperson referred The Pointer back to Global Affairs Canada.

Beyond some tweets from Champagne retweeted by the Canadian High Commissioner to India indicating the government is working on a plan for repatriation, there haven't been many updates for the affected families. The delay in a meaningful response can perhaps be attributed to the sheer avalanche of calls and emails Global Affairs Canada’s call centre in Ottawa has received specifically for repatriation requests, which was tweeted by Champagne.

“We understand that Canadians want to come home and hundreds of staffers are working around the clock to bring you back safely,” said Champagne in a tweet sent Thursday.

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