Carney set to meet Modi to launch negotiations of trade agreement with India

NEW DELHI, INDIA — Prime Minister Mark Carney and India Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Monday to formally launch talks for a comprehensive trade deal and, perhaps more importantly, showcase a repaired relationship. 

That image, of Carney and Modi sitting side-by-side in India, has been months in the making, as Carney seeks to re-engage the country of 1.4 billion, after relations plummeted under his predecessor and the federal government looks to diversify its trading relationships and ween its reliance off the United States.

At the heart of the strain were concerns over security, which burst open when former prime minister Justin Trudeau told the House of Commons in September 2023 that Canadian security agencies were investigating   “credible allegations of a potential link” between Indian government agents and the shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent pro-Khalistan Sikh activist gunned down outside of a temple in Surrey, B.C. 

Four Indian nationals have since been charged in Nijjar’s death. India has denied the allegations, but had regarded Nijjar as a terrorist and long voiced concern overs Sikh extremism.

India’s envoy to Canada points to those tensions as having stood in the way of deepening the Canada-India relationship.

“You hear in India, you must have seen, there’s a lot of perception that Canada harbours people who are antithetical to India,” High Commissioner of India to Canada Dinesh Patnaik recently told reporters in Mumbai. 

“You remove that perception. You remove the perception from the Canadian side that Indians do action in Canada. You remove that perception. That’s what it is. It’s beneficial to both sides.”

Canada’s efforts to repair that relationship, which began when Carney invited Modi to the G7 Canada hosted last June, will culminate on Monday when the two will appear before reporters and then meet behind closed-doors for a working lunch.

After three days of business meetings in India’s financial district of Mumbai, including with major private and public sector energy companies, Carney arrived in New Delhi on Sunday evening. He and his wife, Diana, greeted by a line of local officials and ceremonial military members, were also welcomed by a group of local Bihu dancers who performed for the couple in front of a sign showing both Carney and Modi’s faces.

Signs bearing Modi’s face welcoming Carney dotted the traffic-heavy street leading from New Delhi’s airport.

While launching formal negotiations on a sweeping free trade agreement between Canada and India sits at the centrepiece of Monday’s meeting, with Carney’s goal to sign that deal by mid-December, he faces growing questions at home about where Canada stands when it comes to security concerns from India.

Comments made by a senior government official in a not-for-attribution briefing to reporters only caused those concerns to snowball before he even landed last Friday.

The official, who downplayed what had until then been well-reported security concerns from the RCMP, CSIS and the former Trudeau government about India’s links to homicides and extortions, declared that “we’re confident that the activity is not continuing.”

“If we believed that the government of India was actively interfering in the Canadian democratic process, we probably wouldn’t be taking this trip,” the official also added.

Those comments only angered members of the Sikh community, whose leaders had already warned that Carney’s re-engagement with India sent the wrong message to pro-Khalistan activists who they say remain targeted.

Carney and Modi will meet as both countries expect to release a series of agreements related to bolstering trade and Canada’s energy exports to India, as well as a deal on artificial intelligence.

Among the energy deals is an anticipated agreement about Canada exporting more uranium from Saskatchewan to India. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, whose province tops the list of Canadian jurisdictions that trade with India, accompanied Carney on the trip hoping to score a reprieve on India’s tariffs on peas and lentils, or at least not see them raised.

National Post

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