Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, from June 15 to 17.
The invitation appears to be an effort by Carney to begin healing the diplomatic rupture with India that grew during the final term of his predecessor, Justin Trudeau.
Modi said on social media that he appreciated the invitation from Carney and looks forward to meeting with him at the G7 summit:
India is not a member of the G7, which consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. India has been invited to several previous G7 summits as a guest, beginning with France in 2019. Several other nations have been invited to the upcoming Alberta summit as guests, including South Africa, Australia, Mexico, and Ukraine.
Carney told reporters on Friday that India’s growing economic strength and its importance to global supply chains prompted him to invite Modi to the summit as a guest.
“India is the fifth largest economy in the world, effectively the most populous country in the world, central to a number of those supply chains at the heart of a number of those supply chains, so it makes sense,” the Canadian prime minister said.
Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada Vice President Vina Nadjibulla told the Economic Times of India on Saturday that Canada needs to make up for lost time in developing closer diplomatic, economic, and defense ties with New Delhi.
“In terms of the G7, we are the outlier because the other six members of the G7 are interested in deepening their strategic partnerships with India, deepening their defense technology and economic ties. In fact, every day there is a new announcement about either France, or UK, or U.S. doing more with India,” she said.
Nadjibulla did not see Carney’s invite as an effort to make amends for the Trudeau administration’s spat with India.
“I think in order for Canada also to be able to show relevance on the world stage, we can’t just engage in diplomacy with those whom we like,” she said.
Canada’s frayed relationship with India snapped in September 2023 when Trudeau publicly accused Modi’s government of orchestrating the assassination of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Vancouver the previous June. Trudeau later admitted he had no “hard evidence” to back up his allegations.
Canada and India expelled each others’ diplomats and the large population of Sikhs living in Canada urged Ottawa to do even more to express its displeasure with the Indian government. In October 2024, Canadian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister David Morrison accused Indian Home Minister Amit Shah of coordinating a campaign of surveillance, intimidation, and violence against Sikh separatists living in Canada.
India dismissed Canada’s allegations as absurd and, in turn, accused the Canadians of harboring Sikh activists who posed a major security threat to India.
The first sign of a thaw in relations came in late May, when the Indian and Canadian foreign ministers — S. Jaishankar and Anita Anand, respectively — held a cordial telephone conversation. Anand called their talk “productive” and said she looked forward to “continuing our work together.” She later told reporters that relations between Canada and India would have to be rebuilt “incrementally.”
Foreign affairs analyst KP Fabian told ANI News on Sunday that Carney simply had no choice but to invite Modi, given India’s growing importance to the rest of the G7 nations.
“Carney had no options. The others said, Listen, India must be there. It’s a vital link in the supply chain and any talk of Indo-Pacific stability,” Fabian said.
“Carney is walking a tightrope when it comes to Canadian values. At a press conference, he was asked whether he believes the Indian government was involved in the killing of Nijjar. He refused to answer, citing the ongoing RCMP investigation,” Fabian noted.
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