The Prime Minister’s Office said on its Oct. 13 call between Prime Minister Mark Carney and India’s Narendra Modi that Modi would visit Canada in December. The call came as Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand began her own visit, a day after International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu began leading nearly 300 business delegates through Mumbai and Bengaluru on a mission scheduled to end Oct. 17. Global Affairs Canada calls the mission the largest Canadian trade delegation to India in more than 30 years. On Oct. 9, the department said it aimed to conclude a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, or CEPA, “by the end of the year.” The readout said the leaders “reaffirmed their commitment to conclude negotiations” at the earliest opportunity, but no deadline was set.
A CEPA is a broad trade agreement covering tariffs, services, investment, and the movement of skilled workers. Ottawa’s weak point on India trade has been a habit of deciding in private and explaining little to those who carry the cost. With Modi due seven to 11 weeks after the call, Sidhu should publish the remaining negotiating rounds and the chapters still open.
Justin Trudeau’s government paused its trade negotiations with India in 2023, and Ottawa “refused to provide any detailed explanation” of a pause that “blindsided business leaders and provinces,” The Canadian Press reported. Jeremy Harrison, Saskatchewan’s trade minister, wrote to Ottawa on Sept. 8, 2023, that it was “unacceptable” that his government “first heard of a pause in the EPTA negotiations through the media,” and had received no explanation, The Canadian Press reported. The EPTA was the interim Early Progress Trade Agreement the two countries agreed to seek when they relaunched talks in March 2022, after first launching negotiations in 2010.
On Sept. 15, 2023, the office of Mary Ng, then the trade minister, said that a five-day Team Canada trade mission to Mumbai was being put off, The Canadian Press reported. The delegation had been due to leave on Oct. 9, and the office gave no new date. Ng presented the pause as routine housekeeping that month: “It’s really important to take a look at the negotiations that have been taking place, and just reflect on it. It’s normal; we do that all the time.” One reason Ottawa told provinces so little may be that a detailed account would have contradicted that description, since a routine review would hardly postpone a mission with no new date. Goldy Hyder, president of the Business Council of Canada, whose members are the chief executives and entrepreneurs of more than 170 leading Canadian companies, said that month: “We expect this relationship to continue irrespective of political tensions that may occur from time to time.”
On Oct. 14, 2024, Canada expelled six Indian diplomats and consular officials, and India withdrew its officials; Global Affairs Canada announced that day after Canada accused the Indian government of state-sponsored killings on Canadian soil. The reflection Ng called normal lasted until Nov. 23, 2025, more than two years after the pause, when Carney and Modi agreed to launch CEPA negotiations. The department then held public consultations from Dec. 13, 2025, to Jan. 27, 2026, according to its CEPA page, which gave provinces and companies a formal way to be heard. Sidhu’s mission began on Oct. 12, 2026, three years and three days after that missed departure.
The fourth negotiating round ended on Sept. 18, 2026, and a fifth was scheduled for Ottawa from Oct. 5 to 9, the Press Trust of India reported. Yet Ottawa had published no result from any meeting on this trip as of Oct. 13. Exporters still cannot see which issues remain open or when the last round will be held.
IANS, the Indian news agency, reported that Christopher Cooter, Canada’s high commissioner to India, said Ottawa is hoping to sign the agreement during the visit. He said Modi was expected to come in early December. Cooter’s remark is one envoy’s hope, given before Anand arrived, and the readout mentions neither a signing nor early December. If a December signing is the aim, the remaining rounds must already be planned, so publishing their dates would tell provinces little more than Cooter has told IANS.
Ottawa likely fears that a slipped schedule would show a public miss before Modi arrives, since the department’s Oct. 9 year-end target was missing from the readout four days later. Another reason may be control of the announcement, since a signing during the visit would let Ottawa choose its date. A timetable of rounds and a list of open chapters would give the provinces the information Saskatchewan said it lacked in 2023.
Announcing the mission on Oct. 9, Sidhu said, “This is how we will more than double our trade with India to $70 billion by 2030.” He likely ties the target to the delegation because a mission is a result he can show now, while the agreement is still in negotiation.
That record leaves the C$70-billion target dependent on an agreement whose remaining rounds are unpublished. Global Affairs Canada put two-way trade in goods and services at C$30.4 billion in 2025, so the target means more than doubling trade within five years. In 2024, affiliates of Indian multinationals employed 37,902 people in Canada, and Canadian multinationals’ affiliates employed 68,941 in India, GAC says. Those employers must plan hiring and investment around Ottawa’s date.
Sidhu should publish the dates of each remaining negotiating round and the chapters still open. That would give provinces a month to judge whether a December signing is realistic. GAC should then brief provincial trade ministers after every round. If the agreement will not be ready for the visit, Sidhu should say so and give a new date, which Ng’s office failed to do in September 2023.
