The reaction in Canada to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision not to attend next month’s Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka reflects the island nation’s fault lines. While most Sri Lankan organizations that represent the Tamil diaspora welcomed the move, some others dismissed it as “ludicrous and fallacious.” It has also triggered a robust debate on whether Canada’s domestic compulsions are at play alongside concerns about human rights violations during and after the end of the brutal 27-year conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam in 2009. Canada has been raising its concern over rights abuses ever since the last Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Australia in 2011. So while Harper’s formal announcement of his intention to stay away came as no surprise, his failure to gather support from 52 other countries that make up the group has not gone unnoticed. “On behalf of all Tamil Canadians, we thank our Prime Minister for his principled stand. Canada may stand alone at this time, but it is the right thing to do,” said David Poopalapillai, a spokesperson for the Canadian Tamil Congress. “With CHOGM just a few weeks away, we once again urge Commonwealth members to stand in solidarity with Canada”, Mr. Poopalapillai said. He said Canada’s stand has already started yielding results and pointed out to a report in The Telegraph newspaper on Britain pulling out funds from the Commonwealth over concerns about its leadership and performance. Britain has imposed cuts of £3 million over two years from its £12m a year grant to the Commonwealth Secretariat. Harper has warned that Ottawa was looking at the scale of its own “financing”. Canada contributes about $20 million annually to various Commonwealth initiatives. “We have to wait for the meeting to happen to see what the actual fallout from Canada’s stand will be,” said Amarnath Amarasingam, a Post-Doctoral Fellow at York University of Tamil heritage whose research interests include ethno-nationalism. Dr. Amarasingam pointed out that as Deepak Obhrai, Parliamentary Secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, will be going to the summit, Canada’s move cannot be seen as a boycott in its full sense. However, Mr. Poopalapillai said “it is a boycott as the summit is a meeting of head of government s and our prime minister is not attending”. At the other end of the spectrum, the Sri Lanka United National Association of Canada said Ottawa’s boycott is a mistake. “Canada’s lone campaign… is both ludicrous and fallacious especially on alleged human rights violations, as Canada too has several ugly skeletons in her own cupboard,” it said in an email. “Sri Lanka’s pains were to a fair extent due to Canada’s failure to stop the raising of funds for the internationally banned Tamil Tiger terrorists for a considerable period which caused tremendous loss of life and damage to valuable property,”the email, published on the website of the Canadian South Asians for Peace and Unity Forum, said. It went on to say that Canada’s harsh stance on Sri Lanka appears to be based on Mr. Harper’s attempt to impress Tamil Canadians in the Greater Toronto Area whose votes he is wooing to win a few additional ridings at the next general election “which may well boomerang for the Conservatives.” Bilateral interests at play Canada’s lonely stand on the summit maybe the result of various bilateral interests at play, Dr. Amarasingam said. Tony Abbott, the Australian prime minister has said he would attend, citing significant dealings with Sri Lanka over people smuggling. John Key, New Zealand’s prime minister, has confirmed his attendance at a meeting in which he also asked for Sri Lanka’s support in its bid for a seat on the UN Security Council. But Canada is not alone in its criticism of the Sri Lankan state’s human rights violations. The most damning of the assessments was made by Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, after her mission to Sri Lanka in August. She said Sri Lanka is showing signs of heading in an increasingly authoritarian direction despite the opportunity provided by the end of the war to construct a new vibrant, all-embracing state. She also expressed concern at the recent surge in incitement of hatred and violence against religious minorities in the Buddhist-majority island, including attacks on churches and mosques, and the lack of swift action against the perpetrators. “This authoritarian trend needs to be addressed.