Canada

Crown probing ex-MP’s guest list for India receptions with Trudeau

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OTTAWA — Former Liberal MP Raj Grewal despatched the names of 100 individuals he needed to ask to receptions with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in India in 2018, and nobody on his listing raised any crimson flags with Trudeau’s employees earlier than the journey passed off, an Ottawa courtroom heard Monday.

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Grewal, 36, is going through two expenses of breach of belief, associated to loans he sought from associates, household and different associates to assist pay for a playing behavior that racked up thousands and thousands of {dollars} in debt.

These expenses allege Grewal, utilizing his political workplace, lied to acquire loans, and that he used his workplace to acquire loans for private profit.

Grewal has denied any felony wrongdoing. In 2018, he stated he had sought remedy for a playing habit, obtained loans solely from family and friends, and that each one had been repaid.

The Crown is alleging that Grewal sought the loans from individuals in change for securing them entry to the India journey, or for work on immigration recordsdata.

Grewal was elected in 2015 in a Brampton, Ont., using, however parted methods with the Liberals in 2018 because the playing downside got here to mild. He sat as an unbiased for nearly a 12 months however didn’t run once more within the 2019 federal election.

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He was initially charged by the RCMP in September 2020 with 4 counts of breach of belief and one depend of fraud, however solely two of the breach of belief expenses stay.

On Monday, because the trial started its second week, Crown lawyer Tim Wightman walked a former Liberal political staffer by way of emails and paperwork that outlined the method by which MPs may invite individuals to occasions on the India journey.

Vandana Kattar Miller, who in 2018 was a senior aide to Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains, served as a liaison between the Prime Minister’s Workplace and Liberal MPs who needed to take part within the India tour in February 2018.

That nine-day journey was tense as Indian politicians accused Trudeau of sympathizing with Sikh separatist extremists. It fell fully over a cliff when it got here to mild that invites to 2 receptions with Trudeau had been issued to a person with Sikh extremist ties, who had been convicted in Canada of making an attempt to homicide an Indian politician in 1986.

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However in courtroom, the Crown’s focus is on who Grewal placed on the invite listing.

Kattar Miller stated there have been two bigger receptions — one in Delhi and one in Mumbai — and MPs who wished to hitch may submit names of individuals they needed to have invited to the receptions.

Greater than a dozen Liberal MPs joined the journey and their invite listing collectively takes up greater than 12 pages. Grewal’s preliminary listing had 100 names on it.

She stated there was additionally a extra intimate meet-and-greet with Trudeau in Delhi to which MPs may invite as much as 5 individuals. That occasion would enable invitees an opportunity to fulfill Trudeau and have their photograph taken with him.

Throughout cross-examination, Grewal’s defence lawyer confirmed with Kattar Miller that MPs had been in a position to submit as many names for the invitation listing as they needed and that there have been no restrictions on whom the MPs may invite.

She additionally confirmed to him that she had achieved a “high-level” evaluate of the names submitted and none of them raised any alarm bells.

“I can’t recall something,” she stated.

The trial is predicted to final till late July.

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