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India, Canada plan key visits to boost relations
The last major visit by an Indian cabinet minister to Canada was in December 2019, when external affairs minister S Jaishankar met François-Philippe Champagne, who was then Canada’s foreign minister.
The visit of Canada’s international trade minister Mary Ng to India earlier this month could be the first in a series of ministerial-level bilateral meetings between the two countries in the months ahead, people familiar with the matter said.
The most important such visit could be finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman travelling to Canada this spring for bilateral meetings with Canadian officials, including deputy prime minister and minister of finance Chrystia Freeland.
That trip has yet to be finalised and is currently under consideration, one of the people cited above told HT, requesting anonymity. Sitharaman last visited Canada in September 2016, when she was serving as commerce minister, and coincidentally, her partner in bilateral discussions at the time was Freeland, who was then Canada’s minister of international trade.
The last major visit by an Indian cabinet minister to Canada was in December 2019, when external affairs minister S Jaishankar met François-Philippe Champagne, who was then Canada’s foreign minister.
In fact, Ng’s visit to India was the first by a Canadian cabinet minister in over four years, since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s disastrous trip in February 2018.
There may have been additional visits in the near future, by the likes of minister of national defence Anita Anand, or foreign minister Melanie Joly, but those schedules are fluid given the crisis caused by Russia’s attack on Ukraine. The engagement, for the time being, will be kick-started by the economic relationship, before embracing the security and strategic aspects, people cited above said.
A beginning in the latter sphere, though, already occurred as Marta Morgan, deputy minister at Global Affairs Canada, also visited India last week, and interacted with officials including foreign secretary Harsh Shringla. Morgan serves as the senior-most bureaucrat in the Joly led ministry.
Those discussions were comprehensive, and included the developing situation in Ukraine, as well as that in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Important facets of the foreign policy consultations were over the Indo-Pacific region, focusing on China and the Quad — the formation that includes India, the US, Japan and Australia.
Morgan tweeted last Tuesday those talks covered a “wide range of issues of mutual interest”. According to the foreign ministry, there was a “productive exchange of views on bilateral, global and regional issues of mutual interest”.
