Government confirms 41 diplomats have left India as diplomatic tensions remain high

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly confirmed Thursday that 41 Canadian diplomats have left India after New Delhi threatened to revoke their diplomatic immunity. CBC News reported earlier that a large number of them had departed the country overnight.

The departures followed two weeks of negotiations between India and Canada after India issued a demand for "parity" in the number of diplomats present in the two countries, a source with knowledge of the situation told CBC News.

That demand was part of an angry reaction by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's allegation last month that Indian agents were involved in the murder of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in Surrey, B.C. on June 18.

India claimed to have only 21 accredited diplomats in Canada and said that Canada had 62 in India, spread across its High Commission in New Delhi and four consulates in Mumbai, Chandigarh and Bengaluru.

Joly said Canada will have to pause in-person diplomatic services in all the offices except for the one in New Delhi because of the reduced staff complement.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller told reporters that visa application centres will operate normally because they are run by a third-party contractor. He added processing those applications likely will now take more time.

"Clients might see that their applications take longer to process and other questions take longer to answer," he said.

Government officials speaking to reporters on background said visa processing will be severely affected, noting that immigration officials review applications from India, Nepal and Bhutan. They said the number of Canadian immigration officials in India has been pared down from 27 to five.

Officials said that 45 per cent of Canada's international students, 27 per cent of new permanent residents and 22 per cent of temporary foreign workers come from India.

New Delhi gave Canada until October 10 to withdraw 41 diplomats to make the two diplomatic contingents equal in size, sources said. If the diplomats remained in the country, India said, they would lose their diplomatic immunity from arrest and prosecution.

But Canadian officials allowed the deadline to pass while they continued to talk to the Indian side.

Those conversations now appear to have come to an end. Joly said Thursday that India had said it would remove diplomatic immunity from the 41 Canadians and their families by Friday, a date she called "arbitrary."

"A unilateral revocation of diplomatic privilege and immunities is contrary to international law," she said. "Threatening to do so is unreasonable and escalatory."

Canadian officials have questioned India's arithmetic, which they say does not give an accurate picture of the respective sizes of the two diplomatic missions.