He calls the Indian PM his big ‘brother’ & credits Modi with helping his career—but Patrick Brown won’t address the plot to assassinate Sikh Canadians

“My good friend and ‘brother’ Narendra Modi.”

“In my multitude of meetings with Modi, I have always been impressed by his intellect, sincerity, and humility.”

“I am proud to count him as a friend, and I thank him for his counsel…”.

“Whenever he was taking me around in Gujarat, he always said, 'Patrick is a Gujarati', and he said to everyone 'You should refer to Patrick as Patrickbhai (brother)'". 

"He told me that he would always remember who his friends were…”.

These are a sampling of the words Patrick Brown has proudly and publicly uttered about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the man whose BJP government is currently accused of being behind the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia last year and plotting to assassinate other Canadian Sikhs. 

Brown has visited India some two-dozen times, with little to no information provided to authorities about the nature of the trips, other than his repeated boasting about the intimate relationship the ambitious Canadian politician has cultivated with the sitting Indian Prime Minister—it’s more typical that powerful foreign officials groom easily wooed, often inexperienced politicians from other countries.

As Mayor of Brampton, Brown’s staff, on at least one occasion, in 2019, responded to The Pointer’s questions about why he was there, claiming it was a “personal trip”, his 19th to the country, even though it was later acknowledged that Brown met with senior BJP politicians and other Indian officials during the visit.  

India’s meddling in Canadian political affairs has taken an increasingly sinister turn throughout the ongoing Parliamentary hearings on foreign interference. Recent intelligence information from the United States Department of Justice, and less detailed allegations by the RCMP have revealed a disturbingly dark plot by Modi’s BJP government to undermine, intimidate and murder members of Canada’s Sikh community, whose advocacy for more autonomy in India threatens Modi’s Hindu-Nationalist agenda.  

For close to two decades, Modi’s interactions with Brown, starting when he was a backbench Conservative MP, have resembled the techniques foreign officials use to leverage relationships, described by intelligence officials during the public hearings.

Narendra Modi at a Patrick Brown campaign event in Ontario a decade ago.

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“[T]hreat actors employ ‘traditional’ foreign interference through human-to-human relationships,” a special intelligence report to the parliamentary committee detailed. “This primarily involves establishing reciprocal relationships with influential Canadians, using clandestine networks, employing proxies, and covertly buying influence with candidates and elected officials. In the period under review, threat actors used all of these levers, often at the same time.”

Here is a quote from Brown from an interview nine years ago with Indian media outlet Rediff during one of his visits with Modi: "[Canada's] Department of Foreign Affairs told me not to go visit him,’ says Brown. ‘I went anyway. Modi said he would never forget the gesture. He said he would never forget who his friends are’."

In his own political memoir, published in 2018, Brown describes the lengths he went to please Modi, despite the dangerous implications for Canadian national security, which Brown appears oblivious to throughout much of his book. During one trip he describes receiving a call while “en route” to India from “Canada’s high commissioner, ordering us to turn around and come back to Canada.”

He then describes the mounting frustration from prime minister Stephen Harper’s office (the PMO) and concerns his own government had about Modi’s human rights record, when he was widely implicated in the killings of hundreds of Muslims during religious communal riots Modi allegedly instigated (the Prime Minister has never faced formal charges and denies any role despite evidence that he encouraged the killings). 

“The [Indian] government had ordered a 200-foot Canadian flag,” Brown wrote. “They wanted to send the message that Modi… was not a pariah… we didn’t have backing of our government… Modi never forgot who was with him when he needed support.”

He then brags about the status Modi gave Brown in India while his own government had little time for the opportunistic backbencher: “And while back home, I was having trouble getting permission to go to the bathroom, in India, Modi began promoting me as a friend. He’d invite me to lunch with Bollywood stars… and with billionaires such as Ratan Tata, who has a net worth of about $70 billion US… He had me sitting at tables with the who’s who of India… I was walking around with a big stick. I was given state status. I would travel around with three vans in front of me and three vans behind. There were guys with machine guns to protect me.” 

Modi and Brown shared each other’s private cell phone numbers, he wrote.

He later described what Modi, according to Brown, said to Harper during a visit to Ottawa: “Patrick Brown is a friend; he has been to India many, many times. If he wanted to run in India, he would win as an MP there.”

Regarding how Brown paid for his travel to India, he wrote in his book: “I was now being placed on the official travel ban list for one year. This did not mean I wasn’t technically allowed to travel for official purposes. I was, that is, technically speaking. However, it meant that government wouldn’t pay. That wasn’t so bad, either. I mean, I knew I could get the Indian organizations (which Modi had connected him to) to sponsor my flights.” 

Brown has bragged about billboards in India with his face on them and an Indian contact number at the bottom.

He has also bragged about a group called “Gujaratis For Patrick” named after Modi’s home state, where he rose as a political figure. The group, Brown has said publicly, has helped him raise funds and sign up memberships in Canada for Brown’s political campaigns here.

“I sold three times the number of party memberships as my [PC leadership] opponents, thanks to the Gujarati community,” Brown said in 2015. “They tell me, ‘We need Ontario’s first Gujarati premier.’”

Brown described his growing relationship with key officials inside Indian organizations in Canada.

The special intelligence report to the Parliamentary foreign interference committee includes details of how the Indian government has exploited Canadian politicians including former MPs (there is no mention of Brown and names that are included in the raw report are redacted in the version that was made available to the public): “CSIS and CSE (the human and signals intelligence agencies of the Canadian government) produced a body of intelligence that showed that foreign actors used deceptive or clandestine methods to cultivate relationships with Canadians who they believed would be useful in advancing their interests — particularly members of Parliament and senators… In some cases, parliamentarians were unaware they were the target of foreign interference… Two sentences were deleted to remove injurious or privileged information. The sentences described an example of India’s financial support to some candidates from two political parties, and CSIS's assessment that the candidates were unaware of the source of the funds.”

Indian PM Narendra Modi with Patrick Brown at one of his election campaign events in 2015.

(Facebook)

The Pointer sent questions to Brown about his relationship with Modi and why he has chosen to remain silent about the US and Canadian evidence that strongly suggests the Indian Prime Minister’s government was behind the assassination of Mr. Nijjar last year in Surrey, B.C. and the plots to murder other Sikh Canadians.

Brown did not reply.

He is the mayor of a city with the largest population of Sikhs outside India, some 200,000 residents, including Brampton community members who have been warned by police authorities, under the RCMP’s duty to warn mandate, that they are at risk of possible harm connected to the intimidation and assassination campaign allegedly carried out by Modi’s government.

Canada’s Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister David Morrison this week confirmed, after reporting by the Washington Post linked his evidence to the Indian assassination plots, that Indian Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah is the high-ranking BJP politician allegedly behind the plot to murder and intimidate Sikh activists in Canada.

Modi’s government has denied the allegations, despite overwhelming evidence in an unsealed U.S. Justice Department indictment.

The Pulitzer Center, through a project published by the UK Guardian newspaper, described Shah, a radical Hindu-nationalist, earlier this year: “Amit Shah is the second-most powerful man in India today, second only to Prime Minister Narendra Modi… Shah has played the roles of Modi’s confidant, consigliere, enforcer. It is impossible to chart the course of one’s life without the other…

“Today, Amit Shah isn’t home minister for Gujarat, but all of India. From the heart of power in Delhi, he is in charge of domestic policy, commands the capital city’s police force, and oversees the Indian state’s intelligence apparatus.” 

Brown’s regular trips to India are a mystery to Brampton residents. 

Long-serving former councillor Elaine Moore, who has publicly criticized Brown’s leadership since she stepped down from her role in 2018 following 18 years on council, is concerned about the lack of information and why a municipal official would spend so much time in India. 

“From my understanding and the public documents that are available, there is hardly any information about the costs, reasons and benefits to Brampton,” Moore said. “When I was on council for almost two decades, any travel overseas—I made one trip in 18 years as vice-chair of the waste management sub-committee to visit eight incinerators in five days in Germany—had to be pre-approved, within a limited budget and everything that was done to help Brampton had to be reported back to council and the public.”

“Patrick Brown seems to spend more time overseas than in Brampton, and we have no idea who’s paying for it, what it’s for, how he’s travelling and who it’s benefiting.” 

“This amount of travel is alarming, particularly when we’re hearing about the extent of foreign interference in the Canadian political process, and all the news that keeps flooding in about India’s government conspiring to attack Canadian citizens right here in our own backyard. And now Brown has been asked to testify in front of the foreign interference committee.”

The Pointer asked Brown about the committee’s request to appear before it and when it would happen. He did not respond.  

Brown’s silence regarding Modi’s atrocious human rights record is inconsistent with his outspoken advocacy against the Sri Lankan government. Hindu Tamils, who are the minority in the island nation, have thrown their support behind Brown, who has repeatedly denounced the Sri Lankan government and supported Tamil separatists. This runs counter to the official Government of Canada position, which supports the Sri Lankan government, which is associated with the majority Buddhist Sinhalese population. 

Brown has publicly described how, in return for his symbolic support, Tamils in Ontario helped him win the Ontario PC Party leadership and the Brampton mayor’s race, after he was ejected from the provincial party when two young women accused him of sexual assault (Brown denies the allegations).

But he has remained silent on Modi and his alarmingly authoritarian BJP Hindu-nationalist government, despite the huge Sikh and Muslim communities in Brampton, both of which frequently speak out against Modi’s attacks on religious minorities, particularly Muslims and Sikhs.

The U.S. State Department’s latest annual Human Rights report, released in April, paints a bone-chilling picture of Modi’s India over the previous year: “Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: arbitrary or unlawful killings, including extrajudicial killings; enforced disappearances; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest or detention; political prisoners or detainees; transnational repression against individuals in another country… torture, physical abuses, and conflict-related sexual violence or punishment; serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including violence or threats of violence against journalists, unjustified arrests or prosecutions of journalists, censorship, and enforcement of or threat to enforce criminal libel laws to limit expression; serious restrictions on internet freedom; substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association; restrictions on freedom of movement and residence within the territory of a state and on the right to leave the country; government corruption; serious government restrictions on or harassment of domestic and international human rights organizations… There were several reports the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings, including extrajudicial killings, during the year. Media reports often described these allegedly staged killings of accused individuals at the hands of police or security forces as ‘encounter killings’...”. 

The U.S. State department reported the “Indian government engaged in transnational repression against journalists, members of diaspora populations, civil society activists, and human rights defenders… The government was alleged by other governments, diaspora communities, and human rights groups to have killed persons, or used violence or threats of violence against individuals in other countries, for reprisal. On September 18 (2023), Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his government was investigating allegations of a link between Indian government agents and the killing of a Sikh Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, whom the Indian government alleged and designated as a terrorist, and who advocated for the creation of an independent Sikh state called Khalistan. The Indian government denied any involvement.”

Meanwhile, Brown has remained silent.

He was specifically mentioned in a recent motion proposed by NDP Member of Parliament Alistair MacGregor, calling for the Brampton Mayor, among others, to testify before the foreign interference committee regarding potential meddling in the 2022 Conservative Party leadership race, which Brown was eventually disqualified from when Party officials alleged he had broken rules around the payment of staff and the membership sign-up process. 

“...India emerged as the second-most significant foreign interference threat to Canada’s democratic institutions and processes," intelligence experts who authored the special report to the parliamentary committee wrote.

Bhagat Singh Brar, secretary of the Ontario Gurdwara Committee, told The Pointer that the recent allegations by the RCMP and the evidence in the U.S. indictment should serve as a wake-up call for politicians with close ties to Indian officials. He also emphasized they should reassess their relationship with the Modi administration.

Bhagat Singh Brar, secretary of the Ontario Gurdwara Association, says Canadian politicians should not be allowed to forge their own relationships with Indian government officials.

(Muhammad Hamza/The Pointer)

“All the politicians that are, that were, or that are close to the Indian politicians will and should realize now where they're standing, where the Canadian government is standing, what they're doing in Canada and how their responsibility is to their communities in Canada. So I think everything will change; all the dynamics will change."

The foreign interference committee wrote that it “was already aware of India’s efforts to interfere in Canada’s democratic processes and institutions through its review of the Prime Minister’s official visit to India in 2018 and its 2019 foreign interference review. This review reinforced the Committee’s understanding of India’s activities."

Inderjeet Singh Gosal, a Sikh activist who lives in Brampton, was asked about the Mayor’s close relationship with Modi. Such connections between Canadian politicians, he said, pose a direct threat to Canada’s sovereignty and are highly questionable.

Gosal was cautioned this summer by police authorities under the RCMP’s duty to warn mandate, that he should be extra vigilant and might be a target in the plot allegedly orchestrated by the Indian government against Canadian Sikhs.

"I don't know, but after now, after everything's come to light, I don't think any politician would really talk about their relationship with India." 

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