Carney invites Modi to Canada, as countries tout new $2.6…

Prime Minister Mark Carney and India Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Monday to formally launch talks for a comprehensive trade deal and, perhaps more importantly, showcase a repaired relationship.

You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account. NEW DELHI — Prime Minister Mark Carney invited his Indian counterpart to visit Canada as he concluded his four-day trip to deepen ties, leaving India with plans to formalize a new free trade agreement at the same time as he faces domestic security pressures at home. As he did, one of his senior cabinet ministers distanced herself from comments a government official had made days earlier, downplaying India’s role in foreign interference.

Emerging from a set of meetings with India Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier in the day, Carney announced that a new $2.6-billion agreement had been struck between India and Saskatchewan that will see the Prairie province supply it with uranium, which India needs for nuclear power generation. Political Hack gets at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill. Wednesdays and Fridays.

The 10-year deal, set to begin in 2027, is part of what the Prime Minister’s Office calls a new “strategic energy partnership,” which was one of the outcomes expected out of Canada’s renewed interest in working with India. The uranium contract with Saskatoon-based Cameco was one of the 10 commercial deals, some of which were years and months old, that Carney’s office said totalled around of $5.5 billion that he touted as signs of a deepened relationship.

Many of them have to do with Canadian companies expanding into India and vice-versa. Carney arrived at Hyderabad House, the official guest house of Modi’s on Monday morning to commence their meetings, which were the centrepiece of his trip to India, which included an earlier stop in its financial capital of New Delhi. The pair shook hands and posed for the media, before retreating to a closed-door meeting attended by a group of cabinet ministers who travelled with Carney, which lasted around 90 minutes.

He and Modi then met one-on-one for roughly 35 minutes before they emerged to oversee the exchanging of a series of signed agreements, including the uranium deal. Carney’s visit marks the first time a Canadian prime minister has had a bilateral visit with Modi since 2018. Carney departed India Monday evening without taking any questions from the press who are travelling with him, cancelling his scheduled press conference, which would have been his first since leaving Canada last Thursday.

“There has been more engagement between the Canadian and Indian governments in the last year than there has been in any year in the past two decades combined,” Carney said in a joint statement to the press with Modi, where the leaders did not take questions. “So, this is not merely the renewal of a relationship,” Carney said. “It is the expansion of a valued partnership with new ambition, focus and foresight — a partnership between two confident countries charting our own course for the future.” His office added that during their talks, Carney also invited Modi to visit Canada, which he accepted.

Modi, speaking Hindi, praised his Canadian counterpart for the progress in their countries’ relationship. “From our very first meeting itself there has been a new energy, mutual trust and a positivity in our relations.” “I give the entire credit for this increasing momentum in every area of cooperation to my friend, Prime Minister Carney.” Another main outcome of Carney’s trip was Canada and India confirming their intentions to negotiate and sign a sweeping free trade deal, which Carney has said he wants to see happen by the end of the year.

Canada had also appointed a chief negotiator. The goal, according to Carney, is to double two-way trade to $70 billion in roughly the next four years. He has pointed to that goal as part of his wider efforts to diversify Canada’s trading relationships to wean itself off of its reliance on the United States as its biggest customer in the face of tariffs from President Donald Trump. To that end, Carney’s office outlined how Canada and India signed five memorandums of understanding to commit to working towards deeper collaborations, with at least two dealing specifically with the areas of critical minerals and “diversifying supply chains.” Other agreements, which the Prime Minister’s Office did not release publicly, have to do with developing exchanges between cultural institutions and working together on artificial intelligence alongside Australia, an initiative that the leaders have discussed alongside their Australian counterpart.

Carney’s decision to invite Modi to the G7 leaders’ summit in Kananaskis, Alta., last year marked the start of his efforts to repair relations with India, which plummeted after former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to publicly state concerns that Canadian security agencies had over the potential links between Indian government agents and diplomats to violent crimes in Canada, like the killing of a prominent pro-Khalistan Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in B.C.

in 2023. India has denied any involvement in his death, but had regarded him as a terrorist. Four Indian nationals have been charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Leaders of the Canadian Sikh community have for months voiced concerns about Carney’s decision to re-engage India in light of RCMP allegations from 2024 that government agents and diplomats had been linked to violent crimes.

The final report from a public inquiry into foreign interference released in 2025 also named India as one of the main countries that attempts to meddle in Canadian affairs, next to China. Concerns over Carney’s trip only increased when a senior government official who participated in a not-for-attribution briefing with reporters before the prime minister left last week downplayed India’s involvement in these activities.

Those comments, which Carney has yet to specifically address, have drawn anger from leaders within the Canadian Sikh community, who say their pro-Khalistan activists continue to be targeted. At least two members of Carney’s own cabinet have also publicly disagreed with the official’s assertions. A readout from the conversation between the two leaders said both countries were committed to “combatting transnational repression and organised crime” and said they had made “significant progress in the security and law enforcement dialogue between their countries and that this work will continue.” Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand on Monday distanced herself from the official’s comments when asked whether she agreed with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service that India remained a major perpetrator of foreign interference in Canada.

“The words of the senior official are not words that I personally would use,” she told reporters in New Delhi. Her comments come days after she refused to say definitively whether she agreed with the official’s comments, including on transnational repression, at the time saying only that Canada takes the concerns of the Sikh community seriously, arguing that the only way to confront foreign interference and transnational repression was to engage India.

Ahead of Carney’s meeting with Modi, the Globe and Mail, citing two unnamed national security and police sources, reported that evidence in the Nijjar case includes details about the involvement of Indian officials based in a Vancouver consulate. Anand declined to comment, saying it would be inappropriate to do so, given it remains an active court case. International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu also told reporters that Canada’s and India’s national security advisers would continue speaking when it came to security issues.

He then began touting the uranium deal announced earlier in the day — an illustration of the tension between security and trade Carney faces in re-engaging India.  “We can have two conversations that happen at the same time,” Sidhu said. “This trip is also about economic diversification.” The news release circulated by Carney’s office included that Modi and Carney “agreed to advance bilateral cooperation on security and law enforcement,” when it comes to issues of fentanyl and organized crime.

“Prime Minister Carney also underscored that Canada will continue to take measures to combat transnational repression,” it read. Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here. Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion.

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