India, Canada may pivot to comprehensive trade agreement

India’s new High Commissioner to Ottawa Dinesh Patnaik indicated on CEPA while addressing participants at the Insights India Forum, organised by the Canada-India Business Council (C-IBC) in Toronto

Toronto: India and Canada are exploring the possibility to work on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) rather than reverting to an Early Progress Trade Agreement (EPTA), which was being negotiated at the time the bilateral relationship cratered in 2023.

India’s new High Commissioner to Ottawa Dinesh Patnaik (right) engaged in the keynote discussions with C-IBC president and CEO Victor Thomas during the India Insights Forum in Toronto on Thursday. (Credit: Courtesy C-IBC)

This was indicated by India’s new High Commissioner to Ottawa Dinesh Patnaik while addressing participants at the Insights India Forum, organised by the Canada-India Business Council (C-IBC) in Toronto on Thursday.

“I’m saying that we have progressed so far ahead that rather than confine ourselves to an EPTA, we might as well go the full hog,” he said.

He pointed out that India has completed trade agreements with Australia and the United Kingdom and is closing in on another with the European Union, while Canada has recently completed one with Indonesia, providing a framework for working on a CEPA. “So, you have all these templates together, why confine yourselves to a lower ambition when you can try and get a bigger ambition,” he said.

Reacting to High Commissioner’s remarks, Christy Clark, former premier of the province of British Columbia, said, “I think this plan to try and use the template to allow it to be done more quickly, we hope. From my perspective as a Canadian, I don’t think this can get done fast enough.”

Clark, who is on the C-IBC’s Advisory Council, added, “If this is a moment and Canada is now repairing the damage the previous governments on our side have done to this relationship then I think we should move quickly and make it real, finally.”

C-IBC CEO and president Victor Thomas said he was “heartened” to hear of the positivity in the relationship.

India and Canada worked on a CEPA earlier but that was dropped in favour of the EPTA in 2022, so they could capture low-hanging fruit. However, after several rounds of negotiations, Canada “paused” talks in August 2023, just a month before then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated in the House of Commons on September 23 that year that there were “credible allegations” of a potential link between Indian agents and the killing of pro-Khalistan figure Hardeep Singh Nijjar three months earlier in Surrey, British Columbia.

India described those accusations as “absurd” and relations cratered. A gradual reset has taken shape since Mark Carney succeeded Trudeau was PM earlier this year, and has gained momentum after he led the ruling Liberal Party back to power in the April Federal election. The breakthrough came when he met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the margins of the G7 leaders’ summit in Kananaskis in June and Anand’s forthcoming visit will be another significant step forward.