Canada’s international trade minister Mary Ng’s trip to India earlier this month could be the first in a series of significant ministerial bilateral meetings between the two countries in the months ahead.
The most important such visit could involve 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.
While that trip has yet to be finalised, it is under consideration, according to people privy to such information. Sitharaman last visited Canada in September 2016, when she was serving as the commerce minister, and coincidentally, her partner in bilateral discussions at the time was also 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 Canada’s foreign minister at the time.
In fact, Ng’s visit to India was the first by a Canadian cabinet minister in over four years, and followed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s trip in February 2018.
Future visits by top ministers, such as the minister of national defence Anita Anand and foreign minister Melanie Joly, may be on the cards but are, currently, in a state of flux given the crisis caused by Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Engagement between the two countries, for the time being, will be “kick-started” by building the economic relationship, before embracing the security and strategic aspects.
{{/usCountry}}Future visits by top ministers, such as the minister of national defence Anita Anand and foreign minister Melanie Joly, may be on the cards but are, currently, in a state of flux given the crisis caused by Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Engagement between the two countries, for the time being, will be “kick-started” by building the economic relationship, before embracing the security and strategic aspects.
{{/usCountry}}A beginning in the latter sphere, though, has already begun with a visit last from deputy minister at Global Affairs Canada Marta Morgan. Morgan, the seniormost bureaucrat in the ministry led by Joly, met foreign secretary Harsh Shringla and other Indian officials.
Those discussions were comprehensive, and included the developing situation in Ukraine, as well as that in Pakistan and Afghanistan. An important facet of the foreign policy consultations were over the Indo-Pacific region, focusing on China and the Quad -which India, the United States, Japan and Australia.
The talks covered a “wide range of issues of mutual interest”, Morgan said on Twitter last week.
According to the MEA, there was a “productive exchange of views on bilateral, global and regional issues of mutual interest”.