A "historic" trade mission, a leader-level phone call, and the meetings of foreign and trade ministers comprised the remarkable range of Canada–India diplomacy this past week.
Canadian international trade minister Maninder Sidhu led a trade mission to India beginning Monday, which featured 300 delegates and wraps up today. Sidhu also spoke with Indian commerce minister Piyush Goyal, their ninth meeting since May 2025.
Bilateral merchandise trade is already humming along — and new data underlines the impact of the bilateral diplomatic 'reset' on economic ties: Canada’s merchandise exports to India from January to August 2026 were C$3.03 billion, up 36.7 per cent year-over-year.
That jump is the sixth-largest among Canada's 27 "principal trading partners" as defined by Statistics Canada. (Switzerland took the top spot with a 91.3 per cent increase; Canadian exports to the U.S. ticked up just two per cent.)
By sector, Canadian metals and minerals exports to India topped the list (comprising 41% of all exports), followed by agri-food (16.9%).
Canada’s merchandise imports from India over the same period totalled C$7.05 billion, up 10.2 per cent year-over-year. Imports of consumer goods (49.6%) led the way.
Food for thought
Canadian foreign affairs minister Anita Anand was also in India this week. She spoke with S. Jaishankar, her Indian counterpart, for a meeting that touched on trade, energy, and defence, but produced no new commitments.
On Wednesday, at a Bloomberg event in New Delhi alongside Jaishankar, Anand pushed for “co-ordinated leverage,” a new turn of phrase that translates to partners teaming up to contribute comparative advantages to lower the risks of being targeted or isolated. This could be as specific as the G7 Critical Minerals Resilience and Production Alliance, Anand noted, or — presumably — as ambitious as Canada's efforts to bridge the CPTPP and the European Union.
Anand added that Ottawa's flexibility isn't going away anytime soon — even after a U.S. presidential election in 2028 — and it means co-operating, to varying degrees, with middle powers and great powers alike. Jaishankar appeared to agree with this approach, arguing that, "we are moving to a world where the competition is going to be, to some degree, who has what to bring to the table."
Ottawa's vision amounts to à la carte diplomacy: picking and choosing certain partners for certain issues, rather than opting for a rigid prix fixe option determined by someone else (e.g. the U.S.).
A Christmas miracle?
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also spoke on Tuesday, cheering on progress in defence and security, people-to-people ties, finance, and AI collaboration.
Notably, the Canadian readout reported that Carney and Modi committed to concluding negotiations on CEPA "at the earliest opportunity," a departure from previous readouts explicitly aiming for the end of 2026, aligning with Modi's trip to Canada in mid-December. (Readouts for Anand and Sidhu's meetings with their counterparts didn't mention a deadline, although Anand's subsequent meeting with Modi did.) The change in language could simply be a desire to 'under-promise and over-deliver' or could point to unresolved differences.
Security also came up in bilateral talks. From October 5–7, Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval also met with David Morrison, Carney's Senior Diplomatic and International Affairs Advisor, in India — the third such dialogue in little over a year — to discuss transnational organized crime, terrorism, violent extremism, extraditions, and more.
— Ted Fraser, Managing Editor, APF Canada
