Canada envoy signals major breakthrough in ties with likely conclusion of trade talks by PM visit next month | India News
As they hold the 6th round of trade negotiations this week, Canada’s high commissioner to India Christopher Cooter has said Ottawa is confident of finalising the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) ahead of PM Narendra Modi’s visit to Canada next month.While the agreement will still have to be ratified, the announcement about successful conclusion of the negotiations during Modi’s December 11-12 visit will mark a major milestone in the relationship, capping the dramatic turnaround in India-Canada ties under Canadian PM Mark Carney and Modi in the past 18 months. The relationship nosedived in 2023 after Canada alleged Indian state involvement in the killing of Sikh separatist and Canadian national Hardeep Singh Nijjar.“The actual ratification would take some time because we have provincial governments that are involved as well. It’s only legal when it’s ratified on both sides. But I think we can be pretty confident that the final text will be there,” said Cooter in an interaction with senior TOI editors.“We are hopeful about our ratification process. The 6th round of talks is coming up. I’m pretty confident that we’re getting close, so we’ll keep our fingers crossed. We’re also looking at some subsidiary agreements that would facilitate business travel,” added Cooter. He also said many other big-ticket announcements were expected from the visit including in space.Addressing student concerns The high commissioner also addressed public anxiety over international student policies of Canada, home to the largest number of Indian students at roughly 300,000. He clarified that official caps were targeted at fraudulent institutions rather than legitimate Indian applicants.“It’s not so much the caps as the thought about the caps. People said, oh my God, Canada’s not open. This was a misperception. In fact, the caps are nowhere near being met. This is probably the best time ever, if you’re a prospective Indian student, to apply. Of course there were some abuses. There were these fly-by-night colleges. They weren’t about education as much as getting PR status. So, we’ve got to clean that up, which is why the numbers will come down some. But it’s still very, very significant,” said Cooter.Beyond traditional student migration, according to Cooter, Canada is looking at a shift towards joint degree offerings, institutional presence in India, and mutually beneficial mobility frameworks.Normalisation far beyond a reset, Modi hailed “fastest acceleration”Cooter also said that the progress witnessed in the relationship since Carney assumed office had moved far beyond a reset. He said that the recovery was initially fragile, but gained unprecedented momentum following bilateral engagements between the leaders.“It’s not a reset. It is far beyond a reset. When I arrived here in September of last year, it was a tentative approach. None of us knew what was going to happen next. Is this going to be a slow march? Are we going to take a step back? Very fragile at the beginning. But it didn’t happen that way. When the Foreign Minister (Anita Anand) was here last month, we called on your Prime Minister and he described it as the fastest acceleration he had ever experienced in a relationship,” said Cooter.He stressed that both governments were looking to build institutional economic and societal interdependencies that make the overall bilateral relationship resilient to any potential future political disagreements.“The idea is to have so much momentum, so much ballast in your ship going forward that it can’t vary, that we’ll have ups and downs politically. There’ll be economic ups and downs and so forth, but we’ll have such a weight of economic and institutional linkages that this process kind of goes forward on its own, as it should do between two economies, two societies that are so naturally partners,” he said.Internal Security, Khalistan Extremism & the Nijjar Investigation As about pending requests for extradition of India-designated Khalistanis, Cooter said Ottawa is examining everything that India has brought to its attention but also stressed that Canada’s legal system works in a way that’s different from India.“Evidentiary standards are different… nobody is blocking anything for political reasons. We’re moving as much as possible within the systems that we’ve got…respecting the rights. Obviously, we’ve got to maintain evidentiary standards and other things under our charter of rights as under your laws,” said the high commissioner, recalling a report by Canadian intelligence to Parliament earlier this year that spoke about Khalistanis who espouse violence.Cooter mentioned the recent meetings between the National Security Advisors this year while talking about increasing security cooperation and said what was a very negative kind of relationship had become quite positive.“There are now linkages that are in place that allow people to basically pick up the phone or WhatsApp and be in touch with each other. We have adopted a position of no surprises as much as possible,” he said.Asked about the status of the probe into the Nijjar killing, Cooter stated the matter was in court and judicial proceedings are thickly insulated from the political system. After the US Department of Justice indicted Lawrence Bishnoi and his aide for ordering the hit on Nijjar, Canadian authorities had said that the American investigations had not yielded any evidence to link the Indian government with the June 2023 shooting.“It’s slowly going through the courts. The evidence is before the courts, and it’s moving forward in a system that’s entirely independent of what the government does. So, we’ll see where that ends up,” he said.Navigating trade volatility & US midterms Asked about the US Congress flip and its likely impact for Canada and India as they negotiate trade deals with Washington, Cooter stated tariffs don’t help people and affordability had become an issue in the US.“It’s early days, a division of powers and Mr. Trump has a lot of power, whether Congress is Democrat or Republican. There are some strands within the Democratic Party that line up to some extent with the Republican Party. You can think of China, for example, as one area where there’s quite a bit of alignment between the two parties. What we heard before the midterms was actually somewhat encouraging. There were signs from Washington of more openness to start negotiating the game more seriously with Canada,” said Cooter.Cooter said that global trade volatility reinforces why both Canada and India must deepen bilateral and multilateral partnerships across the Indo-Pacific and beyond, regardless of political shifts in Washington.“I think, as I’m sure India also believes, rightly or wrongly, nobody wants to have too many eggs in one basket. And in fact, we are not going to depart from the path we have chosen over the last few months.
Share your thoughts in the comments
Be respectful · TOI community guidelines
And that’s evident in the budget (tabled November 5) and where we relocated our funds yesterday. We also have a new national security strategy. We’re going to rebuild our armed forces. We’ll have more capability. We’ve got to deal with things like the Arctic... that’s not going to change whether the Americans get a deal with us on trade or not. And frankly, that makes us a better partner for the US anyway,” said Cooter.Carney’s return visit in January? On whether Carney would visit India in January for the Republic Day, Cooter underlined that for Ottawa substance will determine whether back-to-back visits can take place. “I certainly would be telling the Prime Minister we would love to have you back. I’m sure India would too. But we want to be able to make enough progress following this summit so that…it would be largely symbolic if he comes back in 1 month, which is good. But we’d like to have lots of substance,” said Cooter, adding he wasn’t aware of any invitation to Carney yet for the Republic Day.
Source link
