A thaw between Canada and India might be on the horizon with Justin Trudeau stepping down and being replaced by Mark Carney as Canada’s prime minister.
Trudeau had openly clashed with New Delhi since September 2023, when he linked the death of a Sikh separatist leader and Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar to Indian government agents. New Delhi angrily denied any involvement in the killing, which took place near Vancouver, and the ties between the two countries plunged to historic lows.
But Trudeau is now out of office, and his successor Carney is seen as having a technocratic and globally oriented perspective on foreign ties, including Ottawa’s relationship with the world’s most populous nation. Providing, of course, that Carney survives Canada’s upcoming parliamentary election.
Carney had served as the head of the central bank in both Canada and the UKImage: Thomas Padilla/dpa/picture alliance “There are opportunities to rebuild relationships with India, there needs to be a shared sense of values around commercial relationships and if I am the prime minister, I look forward to the opportunity to build that,” said Carney, before being elected as the leader of the governing Liberal Party.
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In another sign of rapprochement, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s chief Daniel Rogers visited New Delhi this weekend for a meeting of international intelligence heads hosted by India’s National Security Council Secretariat. The US and the UK intelligence chiefs also attended the conference, which was held behind closed doors.
New Delhi angry over Sikh groups in Canada In the wake of the Nijjar row, both countries expelled each other’s top diplomats — known as high commissioners — and suspended trade negotiations. But even before the row went public, New Delhi had complained to the Canadian government about the activities of Sikh hard-liners in the diaspora, accusing the activists of trying to revive the insurgency in India’s Punjab state.
Canada is home to the world’s largest Sikh diaspora community, with about 800,000 people, roughly 2% of the national population.
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Nijjar himself was a proponent of the “Khalistan Movement,” which calls for a Sikh homeland by carving out an ethno-religious state in the Punjab region. But recent informal contacts between former diplomats and experts from both nations suggest that there is momentum to put these controversial issues aside, and instead focus on mutual interests such as trade, investment, and fighting climate change.
Is Donald Trump driving Canada and India closer together? David McKinnon, a former senior Canadian diplomat, believes that the new US administration might inadvertently help Ottawa and New Delhi to bury the hatchet.
“Quite apart from whether Mark Carney or Pierre Poilievre is prime minister by the mid-2025, the more compelling driver for a reset in the relationship with India is the upending by President Trump of Canada’s relationship with the US and the international order more generally,” McKinnon told DW.
Canadians, according to McKinnon, are now focused on a future that is not so dependent on the US and keen on expanding relations with the Indo-Pacific and Europe.
“India is an obvious partner for this given our complementarities in resources, technology, education, and investment — not to mention our shared democratic legacies, and interest in a functioning global order,” added McKinnon.
“Canada has a lot to do to rebuild the relationship, but it will take pragmatic approaches at both ends, including when it comes to addressing serious disagreements. How Ottawa and Delhi respond to significant developments in coming months in the Nijjar murder case or the Khalistan issue more generally will be important to watch,” added McKinnon.
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Canada between US, China and India Ajay Bisaria, India’s former envoy to Canada, agrees that Carney’s arrival is a “natural inflection point” to reset ties as Canada prepares for an election this year.
“The pathway could include resuming high commissioners, inviting India to a G7 summit that Canada will host in June and progressing a trade agreement. All this should become politically more attractive, given the broader geopolitical problems that Canada now has with the US and continues to have with China,” said Bisaria.
However, he warns that Canada’s new leadership might be so focused on economic challenges triggered by Donald Trump’s tariffs and trade demands, that the diplomatic reset with India takes a back seat.
Who will make the first move? Carney is a citizen of Canada, the UK, and Ireland, although he has recently signalled he would renounce his British and his Irish passport. He has formerly served as governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, and stabilizing Canada’s trade ties is likely to be high on his list of priorities.
“Canada needs India to diversify its economic profile, and New Delhi would also benefit from a trade treaty with Canada,” Shanthie Mariet D’Souza, founder of independent research forum Mantraya, told DW.
“While establishing such a treaty may take time, one way to assess whether progress is being made is to observe how quickly India appoints its high commissioner to Canada,” she added.
This move would allow Canada to reciprocate and restore its diplomatic presence in New Delhi, she said.
“Given the low level of relations between the two countries, any potential change is likely to be positive. However, for improvements to occur, the new prime minister must address India’s primary concern with Ottawa: the perceived leniency towards Sikh militancy,” said D’Souza.
Edited by: Darko Janjevic
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