AA Edit | With Landmark Deals, Ties With Canada At New Level

So decisive has been the push towards a total reset of ties with Canada that the past is out of range of the rearview mirror too. The highlight of the meeting of Prime Ministers Mark Carney and Narendra Modi was their facilitation of the signing of critical pacts on critical minerals and civil nuclear energy, with talks on an India-Canada comprehensive economic partnership agreement also proving positive and indicating likely fruition before the year end.

The world may be on edge with the US-Israel war on Iran spreading with 12 US allies bearing the brunt of retaliatory strikes by Iran. Life is normal enough in the more peaceful parts of the world for the leaders of Canada and India to focus on a scenario of progress as exemplified in Swami Vivekananda’s call to “arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached”. Mr Carney brought up that quotation to put in perspective his talks in India in which a “Viksit Bharat” and a “Canada Strong” were envisioned.

The landmark deal on a 10-year uranium supply symbolises the return to normalcy after the reset in strained diplomatic ties courtesy the unprincipled politicisation of issues by Mr Carney’s predecessor Mr Justin Trudeau who saw an Indian hand in the assassination of a Sikh separatist figure while hiding the fact that he was on a sinking ship and aiming only at his own political survival. It was on the floor of Parliament that Mr Trudeau uttered those untruths for selfish reasons that led to a steep dip in ties in 2023.

Today, Canada, upset by Donald Trump’s tariff regime that upended centuries of mutually beneficial trade with a continental neighbour, is seizing an opportunity to move itself and India, also hit by Trump tantrums, forward to serve a common aim of building prosperity and a better world. In this regard, the nuclear fuel pact is particularly significant as it aims to serve India’s ambition to expand on use of clean and green fuel for power generation.

Having made nuclear power an integral part of energy security, India is on course to ramp up power generation, now just 6,780 MW from 22 reactors constituting a lowly three per cent of total power generation, to 22,500 MW by the start of the next decade, and further to 100 gigawatts by 2047. To achieve near term goals, India would need to source three times the 600 tonnes of uranium that it produces or sources now and the hunt for a reliable supply source may have been spotted in Canada.

The world’s fastest growing major economy will clearly need good sources for its energy security in crude oil, LPG and LNG as well. Given the pressures exerted by the US on the use of Russian oil, Canada could become a major supplier too as India looks far afield. The $50 billion bilateral trade could become real if the two-way trade is boosted by Indian exports to Canada even as India eyes that country as a source to fulfil its energy needs.