In a sign of thaw in bilateral ties, foreign office consultations were held on Wednesday, more than three months after they were cancelled following remarks from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on protests over three farm laws in India.
India’s vaccine diplomacy too has played a key role in achieving this breakthrough as Serum Institute of India has supplied Canada with 500,000 doses of Covishield vaccine.
The consultations, held virtually, were chaired by secretary (east) in India’s ministry of external affairs (MEA) Riva Ganguly Das and Canada’s deputy minister of foreign affairs Marta Morgan.
In a tweet following the discussions, India’s high commissioner to Ottawa Ajay Bisaria, said they “reviewed the breadth and depth of ties, aligned visions and set roadmap for engagement”.
MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi also tweeted that they “reviewed cooperation across sectors and discussed steps to strengthen bilateral collaboration further”.
The consultations were scheduled for December 15 last year but were cancelled after Trudeau’s comments, with the official reason given that the timing was inconvenient.
During a Facebook Live event on November 30 for a virtual celebration of Gurpurab, the 551th birth anniversary of the founder of Sikhism Guru Nanak Dev, Trudeau said, “I would be remiss if I didn’t start also by recognising the news coming out of India about the protests by farmers. The situation is concerning.”
{{/usCountry}}During a Facebook Live event on November 30 for a virtual celebration of Gurpurab, the 551th birth anniversary of the founder of Sikhism Guru Nanak Dev, Trudeau said, “I would be remiss if I didn’t start also by recognising the news coming out of India about the protests by farmers. The situation is concerning.”
{{/usCountry}}He added, “Canada will always be there to defend the right to peaceful protest. We believe in the importance of dialogue and that’s why we’ve reached out through multiple means directly to the Indian authorities to highlight our concerns.”
That attracted a strong reaction from the MEA and Canadian high commissioner to New Delhi Nadir Patel was summoned to the ministry and a demarche, a formal diplomatic protest over Trudeau’s remarks conveyed to him.
Ties, however, improved after Trudeau called Prime Minister Narendra Modi in February with a request for India-made Covid-19 vaccines. The Indian PM then took to Twitter saying he “was happy to receive a call from my friend, @JustinTrudeau” and added, “assured him that India would do its best to facilitate supplies of Covid vaccines sought by Canada”.
Since then, an agreement was reached to supply 2 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India under the brand name Covishield. The first tranche of the vaccine, 500,000 doses, arrived in Canada on March 3.