Send a letter to Foreign Affairs Minister Anand and Prime Minister Carney.

India both illegally occupies Kashmir and has also annexed and colonized the territory. The processes of occupation, annexation, and colonization are ongoing. India subjects Kashmiri people to land grabs, evictions, incarceration, harassment, criminal intimidation, crackdowns on religious freedom, and physical violence by the Indian-occupation.

Yet, Canada has chosen to renew it’s ties with India, even despite the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) warning in its June report of India’s continued interference in Canadian affairs. Canada is not only ignoring India’s interference in its own government affairs, but also their role in the occupation of Kashmir and Jammu. These ties cannot come at the expense of ignoring the abysmal human rights record of the Indian Government, its treatment of millions of minorities, and its unabated erasure and silencing of the people of Kashmir.

Canada’s renewal of ties, unfortunately, sends a message that Canada is unwilling to hold India to account, but is willing to grant it impunity.

In one month alone (April 2025), Indian authorities killed at least 13 Kashmiri people and detained approximately 4,000. They also “continued their campaign of collective punishment through raids and property expropriation, including through the demolition of homes.”

the more recent climate disaster further demonstrates that if the issue of Kashmir, an internationally recognised dispute, remains unresolved, it will not only be a political disaster but also an environmental one with serious repercussions on the rest of the world. Therefore, Canada in talks about resumption of relations with India must demand that:

1.      The Govt. of India upholds the international commitments as per the United Nations Security Council resolutions 47 (1948), 91(1951), 96(1951), 98(1952), 122(1957) and 126(1957) that call for a plebiscite to determine the future of the disputed territory.

2.      India suspends its settler colonial project aimed at demographic change and exploitation and extraction of resources in the Kashmir region.

3.      India ends its occupation in Kashmir, the world’s most militarized zone, and frees all Kashmiri political prisoners and ends arbitrary detentions under its lawless laws.

4.      India restores freedom of expression, thought, faith, and movement.

5.      India ends erasure of Kashmir’s history by ending illegal book bans and criminalizing journalism and academic research.

6.      Proactively work with the UN towards implementation of self-determination for the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

Call on the Carney government to provide assurance that India will comply with international legal obligations, especially in trade, defence, and counter terrorism, as part of the renewed ties between the two nations.