Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he only went public with a murder allegation involving India’s government after Indian officials rejected a lengthy behind-the-scenes effort to address the matter diplomatically.

He said Canadian officials had first sought cooperation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government "in a responsible way” that doesn’t "blow up the relationship between Canada and India,” especially given India was about to host a Group of 20 leaders summit at the time.

"We had the opportunity of making it a very uncomfortable summit for India if we went public with these allegations ahead of time,” Trudeau said, recalling the discussions in August 2023. "We chose not to. We chose to continue to work behind the scenes to try to get India to cooperate with us.”