NEW DELHI — Prime Minister Mark Carney cemented his trade-centred diplomatic reset with India on Monday, touting a series of new partnerships and a $2.6-billion uranium deal as the beginning of a “new era” in relations, despite ongoing concerns the country has links to violent crime and the murder of a Sikh activist on Canadian soil.
The prime minister later cancelled his only planned press conference of his trip to India — with his office citing time constraints — and was set to leave for Australia without taking questions amid confusion and outrage over whether his government believes New Delhi is still engaged in repression and foreign interference in Canada.
Following more than two hours of meetings Monday with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Carney painted the countries as part of the same global “family.” Excluding any reference to security concerns about Indian activity in Canada, he welcomed recent commercial agreements worth $5.5 billion, including Monday’s new deal to sell 22 million tons of Saskatchewan uranium to India.
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Modi also accepted an invitation from Carney to visit Canada, the Prime Minister’s Office said after the meeting.
“This is not merely the renewal of a relationship. It is the expansion of a valued partnership with new ambition, focus, and foresight — a partnership between two confident countries charting our course for the future,” Carney told Modi from the podiums at the head of a long room inside Hyderabad House, an opulent gated government complex in New Delhi.
Pouring praise on the Canadian prime minister, Modi voiced admiration for Carney’s past as a central banker in two G7 nations — Canada and the United Kingdom — and described their shared focus on taking the India-Canada relationship to the “next level.”
He said there is now a “new energy, mutual trust and positivity,” in the relationship, and gave “the entire credit” for the deepening partnership to Carney’s leadership.
With a goal to more than double two-way trade to $70 billion by 2030, the countries agreed to clinch a new “comprehensive economic partnership” accord — with Carney stating the aim is to ink it before the end of the year.
It was the climax of Carney’s four-day trip to India, one that has been overshadowed by overshadowed by concerns about India’s links to transnational repression, foreign political meddling, and the 2023 killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar — allegations New Delhi has long rejected.
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The 45-year-old Sikh leader, a prominent activist calling for an independent Khalistan to separate from India, was gunned down outside a British Columbia gurdwara. The federal government under prime minister Justin Trudeau then revealed authorities had “credible” evidence Indian agents were linked to the killing, prompting New Delhi to angrily reject the accusation as diplomatic relations tanked.
The RCMP and Canada’s national spy agency have also levelled allegations. In 2024, Mounties detailed evidence that New Delhi was linked to threats and violent crime targeting Sikh activists and South Asian Canadians, while the intelligence service has naming India as the second-biggest perpetrator of political interference in Canadian democracy.
But then, ahead of the Carney’s trip, a senior government official told reporters Ottawa believes India is no longer engaging in violent crime, repression and foreign interference inside Canada. That statement prompted a backlash from Sikh activists, some of whom pointed to how police warned Nijjar’s close friend and fellow Khalistan advocate Moninder Singh that he and his family faced death threats just days before Carney’s visit to India. Singh told the Star it was the fourth time he was warned of a threat to his life since Nijjar’s death, which he believes is linked to his Khalistani activism.
Intelligence experts and some Liberal MPs in Carney’s caucus also questioned the new government statement, with Carney’s secretary of state for combatting crime, Ruby Sahota, declaring that “attempting to minimize these threats risks eroding public confidence and overlooks the ongoing efforts to protect communities targeted by intimidation and violence.”
Neither Carney nor Modi addressed those concerns during their public appearance in New Delhi. Instead, they hailed their new-found commitments to collaborate in areas that include defence and security — something Modi said “reflects our deep mutual trust and the “maturity of our relations.”
Modi — whose country has been long concerned about alleged Sikh separatist extremism inside Canada — also said it is important for both countries to work together to combat the “serious threats” of “terrorism, extremism and radicalism.”
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A Canadian government release said the two governments agreed to further cooperation on “law enforcement” in areas of “mutual concern” like illegal drugs and “transnational organized criminal networks.” The government release said the prime minister “underscored” Canada’s measures to “combat transnational repression.”
The focus of the meeting, however, was clearly trained on trade. The Canadian side touted 13 recent commercial accords that companies had inked with Indian firms and the government in New Delhi. The most significant among them was the $2.6-billion deal signed Monday for Saskatchewan-based Cameco to sell sell 22 million pounds of uranium to India from 2027 to 2032, said Goldy Hyder, president and chief executive officer of the Business Council of Canada.
“It’s big, because the demand for energy here is insatiable,” said Hyder, before hosting a business forum with Carney and Modi at the Hyderabad House in New Delhi on Monday.
Noting India’s plans to expand the use of nuclear power, he said the uranium deal could pave the way for collaboration on small modular nuclear reactors and more sales of natural gas and oil if Canada can build the infrastructure for exports — a central promise from Carney’s government.
“Their High Commissioner has indicated that ‘we’ll take everything you can get us,’ which is why we’re ambitious in the agenda that Prime Minister Carney has set out,” Hyder said.
The countries also struck new agreements to partner on critical minerals and energy supplies, with Ottawa’s desire to export more oil and natural gas — and collaborate on clean energy like solar and win — to fuel India’s rapidly expanding economy.
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Beyond that, there were agreements to deepen collaboration through each of their space programs, strike up new culture partnerships, and promote research partnerships and student exchanges between Canadian and Indian universities.
On defence, the two countries said they will forge stronger ties in domains like maritime security by holding joint navy exercises and exchanges of military personnel, with Modi stating that this “reflects our deep mutual trust and the “maturity of our relations.”
Vina Nadjibulla, vice president of strategy and research for the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, said the visit has shown a “remarkable turnaround” that would have been hard to imagine a year ago, before Carney’s rapprochement started to lift the diplomatic chill.
“The focus on energy opportunities in the relationship is especially timely given developments in Iran,” she said by email Monday, referring to the erupting conflict in the Middle East. “India needs to diversify its energy mix and Canada can a reliable new partner when it comes to both clean and conventional energy.”
Nadjibulla added, however, that there needs to be more progress on security and law enforcement collaboration — and better communication about related concerns from Ottawa — for the India reset “to be sustainable.”
Throughout the trip, Carney and other Canadian officials stressed that their government takes foreign repression and interference in Canada seriously. They pointed to conversations with Indian authorities in recent months, since Carney made overtures last year to begin resetting the Canada-India relationship. In February, the governments agreed to deepen law enforcement collaboration and post “liaison” officers to each other’s countries.
Carney’s government has framed the visit as a key step in its effort to reduce Canada’s commercial reliance on the United States. The prime minister argued during an appearance at a hotel ballroom event in Mumbai that countries like Canada and India must find ways to collaborate and ensure they have “strategic autonomy” in key areas like energy, space technologies, food, defence and more.
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