Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Canada on December 11 and 12, his Canadian counterpart Mark Carney said, as the two sides fast-track talks for a trade deal ahead of it.
Carney said the visit is likely to be to the capital, Ottawa, and Toronto.
India’s High Commission in Ottawa announced the Modi visit schedule in a post on X. HT in May first reported on Modi’s visit. Canada’s foreign minister Anita Anand met Modi in New Delhi on Wednesday.
Carney and Modi appreciated the Team Canada Trade Mission currently in India. It will be his first bilateral trip since 2015, when he travelled to Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver during Stephen Harper’s last year as Canada’s Prime Minister. The trade talks have coincided with an improvement in the bilateral relationship, which fell to its lowest level in decades after former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Indian government agents of involvement in the 2023 killing of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
It said Carney and Modi spoke and agreed to build on the positive momentum in ties and work towards concrete outcomes in trade, energy, technology, security and people-to-people ties. People familiar with Modi’s schedule said Modi will meet Carney in Ottawa and Canadian businesses and attend a diaspora gathering in Toronto before travelling to Miami in the US for the G20 Leaders’ Summit. India described those accusations as “absurd” and “motivated. A readout from the Canadian Prime Minister’s Office said Carney and Modi reiterated their “commitment to conclude negotiations” for CEPA “at the earliest opportunity, supporting efforts to double two-way trade by 2030”. The two sides focused on the opportunity to build on “renewed momentum” in bilateral ties and welcomed increased engagement over the past year, including in areas such as finance, defence and security, and artificial intelligence, the readout said. In a statement on Thursday, Canada’s foreign ministry said she “looked forward to welcoming Prime Minister Modi in Canada in December.”
