New Delhi: Canada’s intelligence agency has continued to name India as one of the five main perpetrators of foreign interference and espionage against the country, but has significantly toned down its public assessment in its latest annual report, removing explicit references to the Hardeep Singh Nijjar murder investigation.The CSIS Public Report 2025, published on Friday, lists India alongside China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan as the principal states conducting foreign interference against Canada, just as it did with the 2024 report released last year.While the previous public report by CSIS had devoted a standalone subsection of roughly two pages to India’s activities, the 2025 edition folds India into a single paragraph within the broader foreign interference section.Further, the 2024 report had described India’s interference activities in the present tense. The 2025 report qualifies them with the word “historically,” a shift that places the conduct in the past even as CSIS retains India on its list of active threats.The latest report comes after the controversy which broke ahead of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to India in February, when a senior Canadian official told media on background that Ottawa believes India is no longer linked to violent crimes on Canadian soil. Amid political upheaval over the remarks, CSIS issued a statement stating that its threat assessment of the main perpetrators of foreign interference and espionage against Canada has not changed. CSIS Director Dan Rogers, speaking publicly on February 3, 2026, said the agency had ‘called out publicly in the past, China, Russia, India and others’ as the most active perpetrators of foreign interference.”What’s different from last year’s report?The 2024 report, published in July last year, had named the four individuals arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the Nijjar case. It described the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s mid-October 2024 announcement linking agents of the Government of India to criminal networks and violent activity in South Asian communities. It recorded the expulsion of six Indian diplomats and consular officials. And it characterised the Government of India’s link to the Nijjar murder as “a significant escalation in India’s repression efforts against the Khalistan movement and a clear intent to target individuals in North America.” It named Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi directly and described his political course as a continuation of a Hindu-nationalist policy agenda.None of this appears in the 2025 report.Instead, the report simply states that “Historically, India has cultivated covert relationships with Canadian politicians, journalists, and members of the Indo-Canadian community to exert its influence and advance its interests,” and that this has included “transnational repression activities, such as surveillance and other coercive tactics meant to suppress criticism of the Government of India and create fear in the community.”The absence of any reference to the Nijjar case is particularly striking, as the 2023 killing and then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s allegation of possible involvement of Indian agents, had led to a sharp rupture in ties with New Delhi, including reciprocal expulsions of diplomats and a prolonged freeze in high-level engagement.On Khalistan, both reports maintain the same distinction between lawful advocacy and violent extremism. The 2025 report states that advocacy for Khalistan separatism is lawful political activity in Canada and that only a small group of individuals who use Canada as a base to promote, fundraise or plan violence are considered Khalistani extremists.However, the 2024 report’s more pointed formulation that “real and perceived Khalistani extremism emerging from Canada continues to drive Indian foreign interference activities in Canada” does not appear in the 2025 edition. The 2025 report does add a new element, stating that some CBKEs (Canada-Based Khalistani Extremists) are “well connected to Canadian citizens who leverage Canadian institutions to promote their violent extremist agenda and collect funds from unsuspecting community members that are then diverted toward violent activities.”The report also marks the 40th anniversary of the Air India Flight 182 bombing and notes that the Lawrence Bishnoi Gang was listed as a terrorist entity in 2025.Pakistan and ChinaPakistan, which had received a standalone subsection in the 2024 report, is also mentioned in a single sentence listing the five main perpetrators.On China, by contrast, the report retains a far more detailed and prominent focus. Beijing is repeatedly identified as a central actor in foreign interference, with references spanning efforts to influence political processes, target diaspora communities and acquire sensitive technology. Unlike India, China features consistently across sections of the report, underscoring its continued positioning as a primary and ongoing concern in Canada’s threat assessment.Canada’s outreach to India under Carney has been largely driven by trade, with Ottawa interested in diversifying from its dependence on its giant southern neighbour United States after President Donald Trump started to wield tariffs as weapons against its partners. During Carney’s visit, India and Carney set a target to reach a trade target of $50 billion by 2030 and signed a uranium supply deal.Indian government sources said they were satisfied with the report’s treatment of India, noting that the section had been substantially scaled back. They suggested the language provides political space for Ottawa to ease tensions while maintaining its formal position on foreign interference.