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Canada no longer suspects Indian interference, officials say ahead of PM Carney's visit
Canadian media quoted unnamed officials as saying that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit may not have happened if Ottawa believed India was interfering
Canada no longer suspects Indian interference in its democratic processes or involvement in targeted violence in the North American country, Canadian media quoted unnamed officials as saying ahead of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first visit to India beginning Friday. The officials said the visit may not have happened if Ottawa and its agencies continued to believe India was interfering in the country’s internal matters.
“I really do not think we would be taking this [Carney] trip if we thought these kinds of activities were continuing,” CTV News quoted an official as saying. “We have a mature, robust discussion with the Government of India on these issues, and we have robust safeguards in place to avoid foreign interference.”
In October last year, a government task force monitoring the April 2024 Canadian federal election kept tabs on potential Indian interference but found no incident of that nature. China and Russia were cited as having sought to interfere.
Former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s allegation in September 2023 that Indian government agents were linked to the killing of Khalistani activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar triggered a protracted diplomatic spat between India and Canada. India dismissed the charge as “absurd.”
The reset in India-Canada relations began when Carney assumed charge as the Prime Minister in March last year. The two sides agreed to restore stability to bilateral ties after Carney met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the margins of the G7 summit in June 2025.
Four cabinet ministers and the premiers of two provinces will join Carney’s delegation to India, underscoring the focus on strengthening the economic, trade, and defence ties. It will be the first visit of a Canadian Prime Minister to India since 2018, when Trudeau, Carney’s predecessor, visited.
India and Canada agreed to resume trade and investment talks during foreign minister Anita Anand’s visit to India in October last year. The two sides unveiled a roadmap to reset their relations as Anand met Modi, external affairs minister S Jaishankar, and commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal.
Canada and India commenced a security and law and order dialogue last year, with Canadian national security and intelligence advisor Nathalie Drouin’s visit to New Delhi. This month, national security advisor Ajit Doval travelled to Ottawa, where he met Drouin and Canadian public safety minister Gary Anandasangaree.
The two sides “agreed to a shared work plan to guide bilateral cooperation on national security and law enforcement issues” and acknowledged the progress in initiatives “aimed at supporting the safety and security of their countries and citizens”.
They agreed to “enable practical collaboration on respective priorities” and to appoint security and law-enforcement liaison officers. The two sides agreed that their respective agencies would build on working relationships, readouts issued at the time said.
In January 2025, the final report of the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions called India the second most active country engaging in electoral foreign interference in Canada. “Like the PRC [People’s Republic of China], India is a critical actor on the world stage.”
The report noted that India perceived that Canada did not take India’s national security concerns about Khalistani separatism “sufficiently seriously.”
