NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh steps off campaign plane as member of his RCMP security detail stands by in Winnipeg, April 23, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck.
Indian agent had Jagmeet Singh under close surveillance
A suspected Indian government agent had Jagmeet Singh under close surveillance, prompting the RCMP to place the New Democratic Party leader in police protection 18 months ago, sources have told Global News.
The agent, who is allegedly tied to activities directed by the Indian government, had access to intimate knowledge of Singh’s daily routines, travel and family, according to the sources familiar with the matter.
He was also described by the sources as associated with the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, which the Indian government has been accused of using to commit violence in Canada.
Police notified Singh about a credible risk to his life in late 2023 and put tight security around him and his homes. Singh revealed during the 2025 federal election that he had been under police protection.
But no details of the investigation have been publicly disclosed until now, and Singh has said the RCMP never told him who was behind the threat, although “the implication was a foreign government.”
Police responded to the threat at the time and Singh is no longer considered to be in imminent danger. Singh lost his seat in the 2025 federal election and has stepped down as NDP leader.
The allegation that a suspected Indian agent was gathering information about the day-to-day movements of a federal party leader will likely raise new questions about foreign interference.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh steps off campaign plane as member of his RCMP security detail stands by in Winnipeg, April 23, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck.
Singh did not respond to requests for comment through an intermediary. Global News is not identifying the multiple sources with knowledge of the investigation who spoke on condition they would not be named.
The Indian High Commission in Ottawa has not responded to questions about the allegations. The RCMP said it does not discuss “protective measures, nor confirm individuals who may be designated to receive protection.”
“The security environment in which public figures operate is constantly evolving, and the RCMP takes all threats against public officials seriously,” spokesperson Marie-Eve Breton said on Wednesday.
The reasons police became concerned about Singh’s safety a year-and-a-half ago have emerged as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Canada on the weekend.
With President Donald Trump in the White House, Prime Minister Mark Carney has said he wants to diversify Canada’s trading relationships and has invited Modi to the G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alta.
But the decision has faced criticism because New Delhi is still not cooperating with RCMP investigations into India’s suspected involvement in the 2023 killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, among other violent crimes.
RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme held a news conference last October to announce that investigators had found evidence linking “agents of the government of India to homicides and violent acts” across the country.
Police said India was collecting information on potential victims in Canada and using the Lawrence Bishnoi crime group, and similar drug and extortion outfits, to target them.
They also said “well over a dozen credible and imminent threats to life” had led them to issue warnings to members of the South Asian community, specifically those active in the pro-Khalistan movement.
Singh told reporters in April that police had advised him in the winter of 2023 that his life could be in danger. They did not tell him who was behind the threat but he said the implication was that it was a foreign government.
He said he stayed in his basement, avoided windows and considered quitting politics over fears about his family’s safety. He decided to carry on but was forced to lead the NDP for a period under police protection.
A lawyer who became federal NDP leader in 2017, Singh has angered India by pressing the Canadian government to take a harder line against Modi’s government over its problematic human rights record.
Indian press reports have wrongly labelled Singh a supporter of anti-India “terrorists” and reported that the intelligence agency that works for Modi’s office had prepared dossiers on him.
Under Modi, New Delhi has amped up its claims that Canada has not done enough to counter the Khalistan movement that seeks independence for India’s Sikh-majority Punjab.
It has also meddled in all levels of Canadian politics and now ranks as the “second most active country engaging in electoral foreign interference in Canada,” according to the Hogue Commission.
With the murder of Nijjar, however, India has allegedly taken its grievances against Canada to another level. A Sikh temple leader, Nijjar was leading a referendum campaign on Khalistan independence when he was gunned down.
Then-prime minister Justin Trudeau told the House of Commons in September 2023 that investigators were probing the involvement of Indian government agents.
Police believe India used gang members to carry out the killing. Sources have told Global News that Modi’s right-hand man Amit Shah allegedly approved the operation. India has denied that.
Canada later expelled six Indian diplomats and consular officials for allegedly collecting information on Canadians of Indian descent that was fed back to intelligence officers in New Delhi and used to direct attacks.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh speaks at campaign rally in Winnipeg, April 23, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck.
The alleged surveillance of Singh is not unprecedented. Before Nijjar was killed, he told a close friend that a tracking device had been found on his pickup truck when he was having it serviced.
“He told me this personally,” said Moninder Singh, the spokesperson for the Sikh Federation who is also among those police have warned about threats to their lives.
Nijjar was shot dead inside the same vehicle outside Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh Temple. Moninder Singh said he did not know whether agents had followed him too.
“I’ve had multiple warnings but have never been told or known if I was under surveillance, but I would think I would be and do live my life as though I am,” he said.
“There’s no other way.”
As someone living under threat, he said Modi’s visit to Canada had added “insult to injury.”
After Modi said he would attend the G7, Liberal MP Sukh Dhaliwal said his constituents had told him that inviting the Indian prime minster was sending the wrong message.
Carney has said that Modi agreed to “continued law enforcement dialogue and discussions addressing security concerns” and that countering foreign interference was high on the summit agenda.
But a Canadian Sikh coalition wrote to MPs this week to voice their “anger and sense of betrayal” over Carney’s decision to extend an invitation to the leader of a government that has not yet been held to account for Nijjar’s killing.
“His death was not an isolated act but part of a coordinated campaign of transnational repression that continues to violate Canadian sovereignty to this day,” the four Sikh organizations wrote.
“To extend an invitation to the architect of these policies who proudly boasts that India ‘enters the homes of its enemies and kills them,’ without any public commitment to justice or accountability, undermines the very principles Canada claims to uphold.”
The letter was signed by the leaders of the World Sikh Organization of Canada, Sikh Federation of B.C., Ontario Gurdwara’s Committee and Quebec Sikh Council. The groups are holding a news conference on Parliament Hill on Thursday.
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The majority of post-secondary students in Ontario are stressed about their finances heading into the school year, a new survey found.
The survey from TD Bank, which collected data from post-secondary students across the country, found that 92 per cent of all respondents in Ontario are stressed about their finances.
“The survey was clear that our students are experiencing a lot of stress, which is a bit unique from previous generations because of the multitude of factors that are just hypersensitive at this point, with higher unemployment, higher cost of living, higher tuition,” says Joe Moghaizel, vice-president of everyday advice journey at TD.
The survey found that while 78 per cent of Ontario parents believe their child has experienced financial stress in the past three months, that figure was well below the actual number of 92 per cent.
“What’s interesting is the amount of pressure and stress that they’re currently facing and feeling, and the disconnect between what their parents believe they’re experiencing,” Moghaizel says. “Parents were not aware of the amount of stress that the students are feeling.”
Moghaizel pointed to a number of things leading to this financial pressure, including the high cost of living and high rate of unemployment among young people in a difficult job market, leading to many students to have what he called a volatile income.
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The survey also found that Ontario had the highest percentage of students stressed about tuition costs at 35 per cent, compared with an average of 26 per cent in other provinces.
The government of Canada estimates it will take almost 10 years for the average student to pay off their student loans and the total student loan debt in Canada surpassed $23.5 billion in 2022.
“You go back to over two decades ago, when I was in school, the financial pressures that students deal with now are significantly higher because tuition is a lot more expensive and the cost of living is more expensive, and inflation has really taken a bite at students,” Moghaizel says.
Another key takeaway from the survey was that 36 per cent of all respondents found that social spending stressed them out the most.
Moghaizel says the social pressure speaks to the online environment that students find themselves in today, where everything they do is shared online.
“They all feel the pressure to spend and keep up, which, again, it’s not too dissimilar from other age groups and we’re keeping up with the Joneses and just keeping up with the spending habit of your circle creates a bit of pressure,” he says.
Moghaizel says this can leave post-secondary students feeling ill-equipped to manage their finances better.
Despite the concern, Moghaizel hopes this information is not discouraging to students and is an opportunity to start establishing good financial habits early in life.
He said that with societal pressures, it’s good for students to understand their needs versus their wants, and focus on prioritizing the necessities. Moghaizel says that through tracking their spending, students can see where all of their money is going.
“We want to make sure that we’re equipping students with the right understanding of financial knowledge for the products and services,” Moghaizel says.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
A Canadian man has pleaded guilty to illegally photographing classified U.S. defence facilities at the Space Force military base in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Xiao Guang Pan, 71, of Brampton, Ont., pleaded guilty to three counts of unlawful photographing of military installations without authorization on three separate days in early January.
A U.S. District Court in Florida judge put Pan on probation for 12 months and immediately ordered him deported to Canada by U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Enforcement (ICE) officers under the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, citing his violations of American espionage laws.
Pan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A U.S. Department of Justice official was unsure about where Pan is in the ICE deportation process.
Pan’s guilty plea and deportation come as anxiety grows among U.S. lawmakers and ordinary Americans about hundreds of unidentified drones flying over sensitive American military bases amid concerns about foreign surveillance and spying.
A copy of Pan’s plea agreement reveals a stark contrast between what Pan said he was doing in Florida in January, when he was stopped by police, versus what U.S. federal agents actually found on his drone, phone and storage devices after seizing them.
On an artist biography page published by the Brampton Arts Organization, Pan stated he was born in China in 1953, immigrated to Canada in 2001 and has lived in Brampton since 2003.
Pan worked as a Best Buy Canada technician for 18 years until retirement in 2022, the biography adds.
Pan entered U.S. via Detroit
Pan entered the U.S. on a tourist visa at the Ambassador’s Bridge in Detroit, Mich., on or about Nov. 2, 2024. The court documents don’t suggest what Pan was doing or where Pan travelled in November and December.
The retiree was charged by summons on Feb. 11 after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) detected drone activity near the Space Force Base and called in law enforcement on Jan. 7.
Brevard County Sheriffs responded. They saw Pan operating a DJI Mavic Pro 3 unmanned drone quadcopter from a parking lot in Port Canaveral and learned he’d been in the area for three days.
The local officers then tipped federal law enforcement agencies.
Federal agents caught the Brampton resident using his powerful unmanned drone and a separate camera with telephoto lenses to photograph and video classified military facilities and equipment near the Space Force base on Jan. 5, 6 and 7, without the base commander’s prior authorization as required under U.S. law.
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According to a statement of facts found in the plea agreement, which Pan signed and initialled on every page, U.S. federal agents interviewed him twice – no dates were given – and asked the Canadian what he was doing with the drone.
They also warned him: lying to federal agents is a federal crime in the U.S.
“Pan told the agents that he had flown his drone to take pictures of the beauty of nature, the sunrise, and the cruise ship port. He stated that he had not seen any launch pads and that he did not know that he was near a military installation,” the plea deal states.
Pan voluntarily submitted his devices to U.S. agents for a forensic data extraction.
That’s when the investigators found more than sunrises, nature and cruise ship videos.
The data showed Pan had flown his drone nine times and taken 1,919 photographs and videos during his three-day Florida visit, the plea deal states.
Of those 1,919 photos and videos, 243 photographs and 13 videos showed specific images of Space Force base military infrastructure and launch facilities, including fuel and munitions storage facilities, security checkpoints, and a Navy submarine platform, according to the plea agreement.
On Jan. 6, his second day of flying the drone quadcopter, Pan took nine videos and 166 photographs of Space Force installations.
This time, he launched his drone from a location several miles closer to the base; his photographs and videos captured the same military infrastructure as on Jan. 5, but in higher quality and from different angles, according to the plea agreement.
Pan also captured images and videos of mission control infrastructure and fuel and munitions facilities, including a photograph of a Space Launch Complex and payload processing facilities operated by two defence contractors.
On the third day of his drone flying, and before he was encountered by law enforcement, Pan recorded two more videos and took 56 photos.
Day 3 images included security checkpoints
His Day 3 images and videos showed roads, power distribution infrastructure, security checkpoints, mission control infrastructure, national security space launch infrastructure, fuel and munitions storage, and naval infrastructure, the plea agreement states.
After police stopped Pan on Jan. 7, federal agents interviewed him twice.
During those interviews, Pan was warned that lying to agents is a federal crime. He did so anyway, the plea deal suggests.
In addition to telling agents he flew his drone to record nature, sunrises, and cruise ships and didn’t know he was near a military base, Pan said his drone sends alerts and warnings to his handset and he received no alerts or warnings, the plea deal adds.
Investigators recovered flight log data from Pan’s quadcopter. It showed that on all three days he flew, the drone logged several alerts and sent operator messages about altitude and FAA airspace violations.
On Pan’s cell phone, agents also found several screenshots he created, including several Google Maps satellite overviews of Cape Canaveral. One screenshot taken Jan. 7 while Pan was at his drone launch location, prominently displayed the words “Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.”
Pan surrendered his $5,000 quadcopter
Pan was charged in February after a multi-agency probe led by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Homeland Security, and the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
Pan surrendered his $5,000 quadcopter, control equipment and storage devices that housed his videos and photos to the U.S. authorities.
He is also banned from returning to the U.S. without prior consent from the Secretary of the Homeland Security department.
TORONTO – An old bat was a difference-maker for the Toronto Blue Jays in a wild 9-8 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday night.
Ty France sparked an eighth-inning rally with a solo homer and Addison Barger emerged from a 2-for-30 slump with a two-run double to help the Blue Jays to their AL-best 40th comeback win of the year.
Barger said France “randomly decided” to use one of his old bats from the cage before his pinch-hit appearance.
“I haven’t seen the bat since last year and he had a homer with it,” Barger said. “And I was like, ‘Oh shoot, I’m going to use that.’ And it worked.”
Barger lined a slider from Michael Tonkin (2-1) off the top of the wall in right field to bring home Alejandro Kirk with the tying run and George Springer from first base with the go-ahead run.
Seranthony Dominguez (3-4) got two outs in the eighth inning for the win and closer Jeff Hoffman worked the ninth for his 29th save as Toronto (78-56) took the rubber game of the three-game series.
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Toronto improved its record at Rogers Centre to 44-22, the best home mark in Major League Baseball at the end of the game.
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Barger became a regular in the lineup early in the season after providing consistent pop at the plate. Despite his struggles in recent weeks, he remains unfazed by late-game pressure.
With runners in scoring position in the seventh inning or later this season, Barger is hitting .389 with a 1.161 OPS (on-base plus slugging).
“Addy’s got talent,” said Blue Jays manager John Schneider. “He can do that. We’ve seen him do that, we’ve seen him hit home runs.
“I think it’s just the natural course of the season for a young guy and I think he’s navigating it pretty well.”
On the mound, Schneider went right back to Hoffman a night after he gave up two homers and blew his seventh save of the season.
“It’s like a quarterback throwing an interception,” Schneider said. “You’ve got to have a short memory and you’ve got to move on to the next thing. And you know, Hoff, like everybody else on this team, they move on to the next thing.”
The game had eight solo homers — four from each team — and Toronto clawed back from three deficits before taking its first lead in the eighth.
Only the Los Angeles Dodgers (41) have had more comeback wins.
“These guys do not quit,” Schneider said. “They do not give a (crap) who they’re playing against. They don’t care what the situation is. I love it.”
Andres Gimenez and Davis Schneider, with a pair, also went deep for Toronto. Byron Buxton, with two, Luke Keaschall and Brooks Lee homered for the Twins (60-73).
Toronto starter Eric Lauer allowed six earned runs and 10 hits over 4 2/3 innings. He had four strikeouts.
Minnesota starter Simeon Woods Richardson gave up five earned runs and five hits over 3 2/3 frames. He walked a pair and fanned two.
Toronto maintained its four-game lead on Boston in the American League East Division standings. The Red Sox edged Baltimore 3-2.
The Blue Jays will continue their six-game homestand Friday night against the MLB-leading Milwaukee Brewers. Shane Bieber (1-0, 1.50 earned-run average) is tabbed to start for Toronto.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 27, 2025.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
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