Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is on track to visit India for a “business-like” bilateral trip in the beginning of March. The visit will last two days and cover the cities of New Delhi and Mumbai and have a broad agenda including fostering cooperation in defence, trade, energy, agri-foods and other sectors between the two countries, according to India’s High Commissioner to Ottawa Dinesh Patnaik.
The visit is in an advanced stage of planning and while the final dates have yet to be decided, he is likely to be in India on March 1 and 2.
He is expected to be accompanied by his wife Diana Fox Carney as well as multiple Cabinet members including Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand and Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and possibly others.
High Commissioner Patnaik said the visit will be professional and businesslike. “There will be a lot of deliverables on energy, including all aspects – nuclear, oil and gas, critical minerals. Also, on education, research, innovation, AI. Most important is that we are two democracies, so there’ll be a lot of deliverables on how democracies function. Then defence would be an important aspect which we are looking at. The entire gamut of defence, from strategic to production to equipment, etc. We’re looking at what we can do together. Then, space, aerospace research and innovation, agri-foods. And something on CEPA (the comprehensive economic partnership agreement) could happen.”
“This visit is to show that India and Canada can interact on every possible sector and area that defines a relationship between two countries. So it’s not limited to only one aspect. Every aspect of the relationship will be addressed and there will be a lot of activity. We are looking at a comprehensive package,” he added.
According to people familiar with planning for this trip, it will also include Japan and Australia. In essence, it will cover the Quad countries minus the US.
Since he had to cancel his visit to the Munich Security Conference due to the tragedy in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia last week, this will be Carney’s first international trip since his speech at Davos last month where he spoke of the “rupture” in the rules-based world order.
This will also mark the first bilateral visit by a Canadian Prime Minister to India in eight years. Then PM Justin Trudeau visited to India in February 2018 but that 11-day jaunt proved a disaster as not only were his official engagement scheduled for the last couple of days of that expansive trip but Jaspal Atwal, convicted of the murder of visiting Punjab Minister Malkiat Singh Sidhu in Vancouver Island in 1986, turned up at an official reception hosted by the Canadian High Commission.
Carney and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have already met twice this year. They first met after Carney invited Modi to the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Kananaskis in June 2025, signaling a reset in the relationship. In November, on the margins of the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Johannesburg, the reset turned to renewal with negotiations towards the CEPA announced after their meeting. Though Modi did travel to Kananaskis in June 2025, that was for a multilateral event and his last standalone bilateral visit to Canada was in the spring of 2015 when Stephen Harper was PM.
Relations between Canada and India cratered in September 2023 when Trudeau stated in the House of Commons that there were “credible allegations” of a potential link between Indian agents and the killing of pro-Khalistan figure Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, British Columbia, on June 18 that year. India described those accusations as “absurd” and “motivated.”
Ties improved after Carney succeeded Trudeau as PM in March last year and then retained power in the April 2025 Federal election.
“The visit of Prime Minister Carney will just put the stamp on this evolving relationship. It will provide the big boost necessary,” Patnaik said, as he described the forthcoming trip as a “new beginning.”