Toronto: While the newly named high commissioners are expected to assume their posts in New Delhi and Ottawa later this month, high level contacts are possible this year as the two countries attempt to gradually improve their relations.
The appointment of the envoys were announced late last month, with Dinesh Patnaik named as India’s new high commissioner in Ottawa and Christopher Cooter in New Delhi. “This is a welcome development, a significant step towards rebuilding mutual trust. The political reset we saw in June clearly has momentum,” Vina Nadjibulla, vice-president for research and strategy at the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada (APF Canada) said. She was referring to the meeting between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on the margins of the G7 leaders’ summit in Kananaskis.
Nadjibulla, who heads the Canadian component of the ongoing track 1.5 dialogue between the two countries, said she was looking at “potential marker” of the improvement including a possible meeting between Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly later this month.
There will be other opportunities that will be watched for contacts between the leadership of the two countries including at the G20 leaders’ summit in Johannesburg in South Africa, where Modi and Carney are expected to be present.
{{/usCountry}}There will be other opportunities that will be watched for contacts between the leadership of the two countries including at the G20 leaders’ summit in Johannesburg in South Africa, where Modi and Carney are expected to be present.
{{/usCountry}}Planning for potential bilateral visits by ministers will only commence once the high commissioners have taken charge.
The track 1.5 process is the Canada-India dialogue series with organised by APF Canada and the New Delhi-headquartered Ananta Aspen Centre, with participation of different stakeholders, including government representatives. Their first meeting was in February this year in New Delhi and as it was supported by both Governments, may have proven the first ice-breaker after diplomatic relations cratered in October 2024. That month, India withdrew six diplomats from Canada after Ottawa asked New Delhi to waive their immunity so they could e questioned in connection with an investigation into violent criminal activity in the country.
In retaliation, India expelled six Canadian diplomats. It worsened an already fraught situation, nearly a year after then Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated in the House of Commons on September 18, 2023, there were “credible allegations” of a potential link between Indian agents and the killing of pro-Khalistan figure Hardeep Singh Nijjar three months earlier in Surrey, British Columbia. India dismissed those accusations as “absurd” and “motivated.”
The 1.5 track will continue with a meeting in Ottawa in October, followed by another in New Delhi in November.