You know it’s bound to be serious when one politician holds a news conference and orders two other politicians to stand slightly behind him like mannequins while he reads from a prepared statement.

That bit of staged solemnity took place earlier this week at the home of staged solemnity – Ottawa – when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was flanked by two mute, grim-looking cabinet ministers, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly and Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc.

All the choreographed scene was missing was a drum roll or a fanfare commensurate with the affected profundity of the occasion.

The Liberal Party’s former prince is facing a mutiny organised by a host of anxious backbenchers worried about losing their jobs – in light of public opinion polls suggesting that Trudeau’s government is listing so badly that much of the caucus is reportedly grasping for the nearest life jacket or, preferably, a large lifeboat to accommodate them all.

So, in a likely futile attempt to resuscitate his on-life-support political prospects and prove to Canada’s largely white, male cognoscenti that he still has the right stuff to remain prime minister – for the time being, at least – charming, effervescent Trudeau has channeled in tough, resolute Trudeau.

In effect, the prime minister declared diplomatic war on India – an emerging superpower and a supposed ally – based on “evidence” gathered by the country’s dysfunctional, scandal-racked police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

That “evidence,” Trudeau said, allegedly establishes that Indian “agents” have orchestrated a clandestine campaign “that pose[s] a significant threat to public safety”.

For its part, the RCMP claims that India’s covert schemes amount to “serious criminal activity in Canada” involving coercion, threats, and the murder of Canadian citizens on Canadian soil.

Aside from a bunch of cops and politicians, no one has seen so much as a morsel of the “evidence” to assess its........

© Al Jazeera