What Modi wants, Canada expects

KV Prasad

It would be Wednesday morning by the time Air India One carrying Prime Minister Narendra Modi wings it way across the Atlantic to touch down at Ottawa International Airport. The weatherman predicts temperatures to vary between a low of 4 degrees Celsius and 16 degrees during the April 14-16 sojourn of Prime Minister Modi. Yet the warmth of relationship between Modi and his Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper should more than make up for the cold weather around this time of the year.

In fact, it was after the Conservatives under Harper assumed office in 2006 that Canada opened channels to Modi, who was then the Chief Minister of Gujarat, and quietly reversed the less than enthusiastic engagement policy of the previous Liberal Government.

“Prior to 2006, the Government of Canada did not engage Chief Minister Modi and limited official visits to Gujarat. After Harper’s Conservatives took power, the Government of Canada opened a trade office in Ahmedabad and  MPs have regularly visited Gujarat and met Chief Minister Modi. This forward-looking engagement has laid the groundwork for more positive relations between Canada and India,” Neil Desai, a Fellow with the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto and a former adviser to Prime Minister Harper told The Tribune.

New Delhi is attaching great significance to the visit, the first standalone trip of an Indian Prime Minister to Canada since 1973. Though technically in 2010, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Ontario from June 26-28 for the G-20 Summit and held bilateral talks with Harper.

Outlining the overall objectives India wishes to achieve during the visit, Special Secretary (Americas) Ramachandran Swaminathan said: “To elevate, diversify and deepen our engagement across a whole range of fields... impart new vigour through concrete steps, and also establish linkages in terms of key areas, particularly energy, trade and investment cooperation, collaboration in skills development, education, science and technology as well as space; and also strengthen linkages in the field of security cooperation. including counter-terrorism, and emerging areas of non-traditional security like cyber threat.”

Canada is the 11th largest economy and in terms of the assets, their top five pension funds alone control nearly 700 billion dollar assets and New Delhi sees a great investment potential. PM Modi is scheduled to hold discussions with pension fund houses.

Canada is also an energy superpower and was one of the countries with which India has nuclear cooperation since 1950s with the pressurised heavy water reactor technology being common between New Delhi and Ottawa.

In addition, Canada is the second largest uranium producer in the world, with 16 per cent of the world reserves being located there. India and Canada signed the nuclear cooperation agreement in 2010 and administrative arrangements in 2013.

Just like the neighbouring United States, Canada hosts a vibrant estimated 12 lakh Indian origin people and a majority of them are from Punjab. Many of them have acquired prominence in various fields, including politics, both at the national level and provinces. And Prime Minister Modi has elaborate outreach engagements with the community both in Toronto and Vancouver.

Canada too expects many agreements and announcements during Modi’s visit that would push trade and finalisation of investment agreements.

The Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPPA) and the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) are expected to facilitate much higher levels of trade in terms of both investment and actual product trade. Bilateral trade between India and Canada in 2014 totalled 6.3 billion Canadian dollars, a growth of 9 per cent over the previous year. The two countries, however, could not reach the target of 15 billion dollars by 2015.