MUMBAI: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney arrived in India on Friday for a visit he hopes will reset ties and double trade, offsetting the damage from his country’s fracturing relations with the United States.
Carney’s visit is a key step forward in ties that effectively collapsed in 2023 after Ottawa accused New Delhi of orchestrating a deadly campaign against Sikh activists in Canada.
He arrived in the financial hub of Mumbai, where he is expected to address business leaders before travelling to the capital and meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, the final day of his visit.
Indian broadcasters showed a police convoy as Carney was whisked through Mumbai.
India’s foreign ministry said Carney’s visit marked a “significant step in further strengthening India-Canada ties”.
“The India-Canada partnership is anchored in shared democratic values, strong people-to-people ties, and expanding cooperation across diverse sectors,” ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said in a post on X.
Carney’s office said discussions would focus on “ambitious new partnerships in trade, energy, technology and artificial intelligence (AI), talent and culture, and defence”.
Carney on route to Asia to promote Canada trade as US ties falter
Last year, the two countries agreed to resume negotiations on a proposed free-trade agreement.
Carney has said he wanted to more than double two-way trade with India by 2030, eyeing an annual target of $51 billion.
Before Carney took office last year, Ottawa accused Modi’s government of direct involvement in the 2023 killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a naturalised Canadian citizen who was part of a fringe group that advocated for an independent Sikh state called Khalistan.
Khalistan militants have been blamed for the assassination of an Indian prime minister and the bombing of a passenger jet.
Former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government further alleged India had directed a campaign of intimidation against Sikh activists across Canada.
India has repeatedly dismissed the allegations, which sent diplomatic relations into freefall, with both nations expelling a string of top diplomats in 2024.
Ties improved after Carney took office in March 2025, and envoys have since been restored.
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Asked whether Canadian concerns about transnational repression would feature at the New Delhi talks, Foreign Minister Anita Anand told reporters: “That is always at the forefront of our minds.”
Pivot
India, the world’s fastest-growing major economy, is seeking to attract more overseas investments, and says Canadian pension and wealth funds have already invested $73 billion.
Energy-hungry India – the world’s most populous country with 1.4 billion people – hopes Canada can support its ambitious plan to expand nuclear power capacity.
After India, Carney will travel on to Australia and Japan, part of a broad effort to pivot the Canadian economy away from excessive reliance on its southern neighbour, the United States.
In 2024, before US President Donald Trump returned to office and upended global trade through a flurry of tariffs, more than 75 percent of Canadian exports went to the United States. Two-way trade that year exceeded $900 billion.
So far Trump broadly adhered to the North American free trade agreement he signed during his first term, and about 85 percent of US-Canada trade remains tariff-free.
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But at the same time, Trump has also imposed painful industry-specific tariffs, and there are fears that if he scraps the broader trade deal, the Canadian economy will be hit hard.
Carney has made boosting commerce with Europe and Asia cornerstones of his strategy to backstop Canada’s economy, should free trade with Washington collapse.
Carney’s hopes for trade growth with Australia and Japan are more modest, but his office said cooperation over critical mineral supply chains will be a priority.
Advanced economies have made a push to deepen critical mineral cooperation, especially in the processing of rare earth elements essential to power many high-tech products.
China currently has dominant control of rare earth supply chains, a concern that Canada highlighted throughout its just-concluded G7 presidency.
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