Concerns of ‘foreign interference’ by Sri Lanka reported to CSIS, Brampton Mayor Brown says

Mayor Patrick Brown says he’s told Canada’s spy agency about alleged attempts at “foreign interference” in Brampton being carried out by the Sri Lanka High Commission.

The allegations come following a protest in Brampton over the Tamil Genocide Memorial being built – a monument honouring the victims in Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war.

Between 80,000 to 100,000 people were killed in the decades-long conflict with both the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam – a group listed as a terrorist organization by the Canadian government in 2006 – accused of atrocities.

The Brampton protest came on the heels of a letter from the Sri Lanka High Commission in Ottawa to the city saying the monument, which has been entirely funded by members of the city’s Tamil community, would “severely disturb the unity and reconciliation efforts among all affected Sri Lankans.”

Brown claims those protestors were “being used as plants,” and alleges it was just the latest case of “ongoing and systemic foreign interference” by the high commission.

The mayor says he’s taken those concerns straight to the Government of Canada and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

Brown revealed earlier this year he had previously been briefed by CSIS on examples of foreign influence in Brampton amid allegations that India, China and other countries have been meddling in Canadian affairs.

“There’s a lot of attention on India and China, there’s been less attention on Sri Lanka,” Brown said referring to a report earlier this year that found India, Pakistan and Iran engaged in foreign interference in Canada.

“And we’ve seen this over the years,” Brown said in an interview with INsauga.com. “We get a letter from the Sri Lankan high commission and then you get a small group of protestors that parrot the exact words (in the letter).”

Brown was one of the first Canadian politicians to publicly call the civil war a genocide and has been an outspoken critic of that country’s government.

He said clashes with the high commission go back to his time as an MP in Barrie, and recounted a planned trip to see the aftermath of the Sri Lanka civil war that was scrapped when his travel visa was denied – something he said he’d never seen before as an MP.

A group of Sinhalese protesters disrupted a ceremony in which a foundation stone was being laid to mark the beginning of the construction of the Tamil Genocide Monument in Brampton, Canada on Wednesday.

Read more on our website, https://t.co/rY0IM20Te8 pic.twitter.com/qaEyP6xRmH

— Tamil Guardian (@TamilGuardian) August 15, 2024

The UN has been looking into alleged war crimes with the UN Human Rights Council accusing Sri Lanka of “obstructing accountability” in 2021.

Ontario’s Bill 104 marks seven days each year ending on May 18 as “Tamil Genocide Education Week.”

Brown accused the high commission of trying “to bully” and “intimidate” Brampton residents through protests “on many occasions.”

In a letter sent to the city, Consul General Thushara Rodrigo said moving ahead with the monument construction would “severely disturb the unity and reconciliation efforts among all affected Sri Lankans.”

Multiple requests for comment from the Sri Lanka High Commission in Ottawa were not returned.

Brown fired back at the Sri Lankan government, saying it can’t stop Tamil Canadians from “remembering their loved ones and heroes.”

“I understand that in their regime you’re not allowed to mourn for loved ones, but they have no right – no right – objecting to our ability to mourn for loved ones in Canada,” Brown said.