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Ottawa: On a winter evening in Canada’s capital, with snow piled along sidewalks, India’s high commissioner moved briskly in the cavernous hall of a top Indian restaurant, introducing visiting Indian journalists to Canadian reporters and editors who will accompany Prime Minister Mark Carney to Mumbai and New Delhi later this week.

The choreography signals how closely both sides are managing what is the first standalone bilateral visit since relations nearly collapsed.

It has been a non-stop media cycle for Patnaik ever since the Prime Minister’s Office formally announced the anticipated Indo-Pacific three-nation trip on Monday.

Carney will travel to Mumbai and New Delhi from Thursday for four days, with a deliberate emphasis on business and strategic cooperation. He will not visit Punjab – a departure from the itineraries of former prime ministers Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper, who made high-profile stops at the Golden Temple in Amritsar during their first India visits – a nod to the large Indian diaspora from Punjab.

According to the Prime Minister’s Office, Carney will focus on expanding economic and business relationships, identifying investment opportunities and building partnerships in trade, energy, artificial intelligence, talent mobility and defence.

Asked about the lack of a Punjab stop, Prime Minister’s Office press secretary Laura Scaffidi told the Globe and Mail that Carney would focus on “expanding economic and business relationships”, while he would do the cultural outreach at home.

The framing is deliberate. After two years in which India-Canada ties were dominated by diplomatic rupture, the visit is designed to foreground structural economic interests.

The collapse in India-Canada relations began in September 2023 when then prime minister Justin Trudeau stood up in the House of Commons and alleged “credible” links between Indian agents and the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia. India rejected the allegation as “absurd” and “motivated”.

Even as diplomats were expelled by both sides, India demanded parity in diplomatic staffing, forcing Canada to withdraw 41 diplomats and their families from its missions.

In October 2024, tensions escalated again when Ottawa declared India’s high commissioner and other diplomats persona non grata. New Delhi responded in kind. It had accompanied Royal Canadian Mounted Police alleging links between Indian officials........

© The Wire