Business continues despite India-Canada tensions

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A potential trade deal between Canada and India will “take only a couple of months” to conclude once the two nations resume discussions after political tensions stalled matters in recent months, says India’s High Commissioner to Canada.

But Sanjay Kumar Verma couldn’t say when those talks would resume.

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“Whenever there is a decision to un-pause — I cannot predict — by the Canadian side, it will take only a couple of months to reach the conclusion,” he said at a press conference on Nov. 10. “Difficult to give a timeline, because in international politics, there are so many incidents happening all the time, but certainly a willingness is there to resolve the issue.”

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Canada and India have been working on a trade deal since 2010, but discussions picked up last year when Trade Minister Mary Ng visited India and the countries held several rounds of discussions.

Business leaders expected the nations to sign an early progress trade agreement (EPTA) by year-end. An EPTA is considered a smaller version of the more comprehensive economic partnership agreement that Canada eventually wants to sign.

Verma said the things that need to be resolved under EPTA are “very few.”

But trade deal talks were paused in September after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada would pursue allegations of a potential link between India’s government and the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen who headed the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, B.C.

India’s government strongly rejected Trudeau’s allegations, which was followed by diplomats being expelled from both sides.

Verma said trade relations between the two nations didn’t “suffer a lot,” and neither side has “expressed any wish to deter” trade. Canada-India bilateral trade in goods was almost $12 billion in 2022, a 57 per cent increase over 2021, but he said India’s exports to Canada fell by seven per cent between January and September this year and its imports from Canada fell by two per cent.

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He added that he hasn’t heard of a single case of an investor withdrawing investment from India since Trudeau made his announcement.

“The (Indian government) is very clear that business has to be done and that is why you see we resumed our visa services after about a month and five days,” Verma said. “Business visa is one of the categories which has been relaxed.”

He said the two governments are in talks “at more professional and technical levels” to resolve the issues between the nations and he sees “convergence happening,” but there’s still work to be done.

Businesses in Canada don’t necessarily need a deal with India to invest there, but a trade agreement provides reassurance that there are a set of rules that both countries will follow, businesses say.

But Victor Thomas, chief executive of the Canada-India Business Council, said talks on such an agreement are unlikely to happen any time soon.

“Given everything that’s going on, I don’t foresee any significant trade talks happening imminently,” he said at the press conference on Friday. “I have been telling my members to not expect anything right now.”

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But Thomas said it was a “big deal” to see both countries not placing any sanctions on each other and saying that business should continue despite being “in the midst of not agreeing on a lot.”

Former British Columbia premier Christy Clark, who was also at the press conference, said she expects Canada to suffer, not India, due to the delay in a trade agreement.

“The products that we produce are high value, high quality, but not impossible for India to find elsewhere in the world,” she said. “This is an opportunity for Canada to be a part of India’s explosive growth. We don’t want to be the country that’s sitting it out while others are able to take part.”

She urged the two nations to “lower the temperature” and get a deal done. She also said it’s important for Canada’s premiers to work directly with India’s chief ministers to boost trade.

• Email: nkarim@postmedia.com

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