India’s new envoy wants full-scale trade deal with Canada as relations thaw

Indian High Commissioner Dinesh Patnaik said Canadian businesses should expand trade and investment ties with India now, without waiting for a formal trade agreement.

India’s new envoy to Canada says Ottawa should pivot away from pursuing a scaled-down trade deal and instead reach for a comprehensive trade and investment agreement with the world’s most populous country.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Canadian Press, Indian High Commissioner Dinesh Patnaik also said Canadian businesses should expand trade and investment ties with India now, without waiting for governments to sign a formal trade agreement.

“We are more interested in a comprehensive package than something with low ambition. We want a higher ambition,” he said in a Thursday interview.

“A trade deal is something we should not wait for. We should start getting whatever we can, the early gains.”

Canada and India have been in trade talks since 2010. Those negotiations were paused and restarted more than once, and were shut down entirely by Ottawa in 2023, after the federal government accused New Delhi of playing a role in the assassination of a Canadian Sikh activist in Surrey, B.C.

The Carney government has made it a priority to reset relations with India, including a visit earlier this month by Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand to India where both countries released a joint statement titled “renewing momentum towards a stronger partnership.” The statement mentioned trade multiple times.

The statement was a major shift in tone from a year prior, when Canada expelled six senior Indian diplomats after the RCMP alleged New Delhi was behind wide-scale murder, extortion and coercion in Canada. In autumn 2023, India stripped diplomatic protection for most Canadian envoys.

Patnaik said despite the “slight hiccups” in the diplomatic relationship in recent years, “trade hasn’t slowed down.”