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When Mark Carney visits India in March, the possibility of a uranium deal being signed is bright. Both India and Canada have been finalising modalities on the deal for a while. The U.S. $2.8 billion deal, when signed, would see the supply of uranium by Canada’s Cameco Corporation to India for a period of 10 years. The deal is all set to be a part of broader nuclear cooperation between the two countries.

These are some of the recent gleanings from Canadian media about improvement in relations with India.

Though India wanted Mark Carney to visit India in time for the AI Summit in New Delhi in mid-February, there are chances that the Canadian Prime Minister may choose to make a stopover in India before or after his visit to Australia in March.  

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The visit, first by Mark Carney as prime minister, may also lead to the revival of negotiations on a comprehensive trade deal that were suspended following a two-year rupture in the relations between the two nations.

The relations hit an all-time low in 2023 when the then-prime minister, Justin Trudeau, publicly accused India of a role in the murder of a Canadian Sikh in Surrey in June 2023. India still vehemently denies any involvement. However, during a recent exchange of visits, both India and Canada have promised to cooperate more closely on transnational crime and security.

Canada has been claiming that they have been investigating the alleged transnational repressions targeting Sikh activists or pro-Khalistan supporters, with four Indian nationals facing prosecution in the infamous Nijjar assassination case.

It is part of this exercise that national security advisers of both India and Canada have been in constant touch with each other.  Canada’s national security adviser Nathalie G. Drouin visited India in September last year and held discussions with his Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval. Now, Ajit Doval is expected to visit Canada in the coming weeks to take forward the talks on exchanging intelligence and information on Indian gangs operating in Canada.

Also, India’s new High Commissioner to Canada, Dinesh Patnaik, has given interviews to leading Canadian media channels, including CBC and the Globe and Mail, to project the Indian point of view, besides holding meetings with Premiers of different provinces, inviting them to visit India to further trade and business partnerships.

In the rapidly changing global geopolitical scenario, both Canada and India are looking for new opportunities to strengthen their economic ties. Dinesh Patnaik was quoted in one of the interviews saying that “India has long viewed Canada as the youngest brother of the United States.”

He was quoted as saying that “in India’s view, Mark Carney has been carving out a more independent role for Canada, including with his much-lauded speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 20.

The speech amounted to a veiled attack on the damage U.S. President Donald Trump has done to the international rules-based order at a time when Mark Carney has been working to reduce Canada’s dependence on U.S. trade by finding other partners. While talking about the comprehensive deal, Dinesh Patnaik said one benefit of this major deal being concluded is that India’s trade negotiations now have more capacity to focus on talks with Canada. The high commissioner said that he expects it will take a year for India to reach a deal with Canada. He added that it is possible this could be shortened, the Canadian media reports said.

The process of exchange of ministerial visits, set in motion by Canada’s foreign minister, Anita Anand, has been picking up pace over the months. Besides three federal ministers—Anita Indira Anand, Maninder Singh Sidhu, and energy minister Tom Hodgson—a premier, David Eby of British Columbia, has already been on probing missions to India. More Canadian delegations are also expected to embark upon visits to the world’s fastest-growing economy.

A delegation of the Indo-Canadian Chamber of Commerce is also expected to be in Mumbai, New Delhi, and Chandigarh in the second week of March. Earlier, the Canadian Hindu Chamber of Commerce delegation was overwhelmed by the warmth it received during its visit to Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Chandigarh.

It all started after the Canadian PM defied all opposition and criticism in extending an invitation to his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, to attend the G20 summit in Canada. Subsequently, India’s Foreign Minister, Jaishankar, on invitation from Anita Indira Anand, attended the G7 Foreign Ministers' conclave at Niagara.

Carrying the exchange of visits forward, Indian politicians and bigwigs likely to land in Canada in the coming weeks include National Security Adviser Ajit Doval; Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal; Minister of Finance and Commerce Nirmala Sitaraman; Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri; and Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan.

Discover more at New India Abroad.