India has agreed to readmit a full cohort of Canadian diplomats, two years after New Delhi forced Ottawa to send most of its envoys home, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said on Tuesday.
Anand is in India where she met Monday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and senior government officials. She was invited to be the first cabinet minister to visit the country, following two years of strained diplomatic relations.
She said the speed at which the Canadian mission in India returns to full strength could help determine whether the two countries relaunch trade negotiations.
"The approach that we are following is a step-by-step approach, to be prudent along the way," Anand told reporters in a video conference from Mumbai.
During her visit, the two countries signed a statement outlining areas where they want to co-operate, including trade and artificial intelligence.
Canada and India expelled each other's senior diplomats last fall after the RCMP accused New Delhi of playing a role in a network of violence in Canada linked to homicides and acts of extortion.
In September 2023, the federal government accused New Delhi of playing a role in the assassination of a Sikh activist near Vancouver earlier that year.
Anand said the reset of diplomatic relations with India will happen only gradually, starting with the re-establishment of Canada's full cohort of diplomats.
Canada removed most of its diplomatic presence from India in October 2023 after New Delhi threatened to strip diplomatic immunity from 41 diplomats and their 42 dependants.
Its diplomatic cohort in India has been gradually restored since then, and both countries named new high commissioners in August. Global Affairs Canada did not immediately respond when asked how many Canadian diplomats are now accredited to India.
Anand said she raised the matter of restoring Canadas diplomatic cohort with her Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
"We both agreed that we would staff up as we had been before, in order to service our respective populations," she said.
"We want to make sure that they have the resources to service the population wanting to obtain visas, and wanting to travel between the two countries."
Anand said Ottawa needs to see its diplomatic presence restored before it considers a trade mission or revives talks on a possible trade deal, which have ebbed and flowed since 2010.
Anand said Canada will at all times defend the security of Canadians. Both countries have agreed to closed-doors talks on security.
Canadian officials have said those talks are helping address concerns about transnational repression without allowing those issues to dominate the relationship.
The World Sikh Organization of Canada said Monday it is "deeply concerned" by the fact the joint statement from offered "no assurances about stopping foreign interference or transnational repression."
Anand also met with Indian Trade Minister Piyush Goyal, who said he had a "productive discussion" last Saturday with Canada's Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu.
Sidhu said the two countries can collaborate on clean technology, agriculture and critical minerals, while Goyal said trade and investment "should be grounded in the principles of mutual respect, trust and balance."
Sidhu's briefing binder, prepared by Global Affairs Canada in May, says India has contributed to problems in the global trading order on which Canada relies, particularly the rules outlined by the World Trade Organization.
"Negotiations of major interest such as agriculture have long been stalemated. A handful of obstructive members, led by India, routinely block outcomes negotiated and desired by most members," the binder reads.
Picture Courtesy: Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP
