Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will seek to reset strained relations and accelerate efforts to diversify trade beyond the United States when he meets his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on Monday.
The talks in New Delhi are expected to address trade and investment, clean energy, defence co-operation, critical minerals and artificial intelligence, according to officials on both sides.
A central objective will be reviving negotiations on the long-mooted Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.
Addressing business leaders in Mumbai on Saturday, Carney said the proposed accord — which he hopes to conclude by the end of the year — could double bilateral trade by 2030.
“This visit marks the end of a difficult chapter and, more importantly, the start of a new and more ambitious partnership between two confident and complementary nations,” he said.
Carney’s trip represents a significant step in repairing ties that effectively collapsed in 2023 after Ottawa accused New Delhi of orchestrating a lethal campaign against Sikh activists in Canada.
India’s foreign ministry described the visit as a “significant step” towards strengthening relations.
New Delhi is keen to attract greater overseas investment and says Canadian pension and sovereign wealth funds have already invested some $73 billion in the country.
Energy-hungry India — the world’s most populous nation, with 1.4 billion people — is also looking to Canada to support its ambitious plans to expand nuclear power capacity.
Strategic partner
“We can be India’s strategic partner in critical minerals for its manufacturing, clean technology and nuclear sectors,” Carney said.
“And India can assist us in doubling our electricity grid capacity with clean power by 2040.”
Prior to Carney taking office last year, Ottawa accused Modi’s government of direct involvement in the 2023 killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a naturalised Canadian citizen associated with a fringe group advocating the creation of an independent Sikh state known as Khalistan.
Militants linked to the Khalistan movement have previously been blamed for the assassination of an Indian prime minister and the bombing of a passenger aircraft.
The government of former prime minister Justin Trudeau further alleged that India had directed a broader campaign of intimidation against Sikh activists across Canada.
New Delhi has consistently rejected the accusations, which triggered a sharp diplomatic downturn, culminating in both countries expelling senior diplomats in 2024.
Strategic analyst and author Brahma Chellaney said Carney’s visit was “intended to close one of the most acrimonious diplomatic chapters between two major democracies in recent memory”.
“For two pluralistic democracies navigating an uncertain century, this may prove to be the most durable foundation of all,” he wrote on X.
Relations between New Delhi and Ottawa began to improve after Carney assumed office in March 2025, with envoys subsequently reinstated.
Enormous opportunities
“Building genuine strategic autonomy requires diversification, not isolation,” Carney said.
“It creates enormous opportunities for India and Canada to work together, to mitigate risks, to enhance prosperity and to strengthen sovereignty.”
Reducing Canada’s heavy reliance on the United States has become a cornerstone of Carney’s foreign economic policy.
In 2024, before US President Donald Trump returned to office and unsettled global trade with a wave of tariffs, more than 75 per cent of Canadian exports were destined for the United States. Two-way trade that year exceeded $900 billion.
While Trump has largely upheld the North American free trade agreement signed during his first term — leaving around 85 per cent of US–Canada trade tariff-free — he has also imposed sector-specific tariffs that have weighed heavily on certain industries. There are growing concerns that if the broader agreement were scrapped, Canada’s economy would face significant disruption.
Carney is therefore seeking to deepen commercial ties with Europe and Asia as a hedge against potential instability in trade relations with Washington.
Following his visit to India, he is scheduled to travel to Australia and Japan as part of a broader strategy to expand Canada’s economic partnerships.
