Ottawa: On a winter evening in Canada’s capital, with snow piled along sidewalks, India’s high commissioner moved briskly in the cavernous hall of a top Indian restaurant, introducing visiting Indian journalists to Canadian reporters and editors who will accompany Prime Minister Mark Carney to Mumbai and New Delhi later this week.The choreography signals how closely both sides are managing what is the first standalone bilateral visit since relations nearly collapsed.It has been a non-stop media cycle for Patnaik ever since the Prime Minister’s Office formally announced the anticipated Indo-Pacific three-nation trip on Monday.Carney will travel to Mumbai and New Delhi from Thursday for four days, with a deliberate emphasis on business and strategic cooperation. He will not visit Punjab – a departure from the itineraries of former prime ministers Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper, who made high-profile stops at the Golden Temple in Amritsar during their first India visits – a nod to the large Indian diaspora from Punjab.According to the Prime Minister’s Office, Carney will focus on expanding economic and business relationships, identifying investment opportunities and building partnerships in trade, energy, artificial intelligence, talent mobility and defence.Asked about the lack of a Punjab stop, Prime Minister’s Office press secretary Laura Scaffidi told the Globe and Mail that Carney would focus on “expanding economic and business relationships”, while he would do the cultural outreach at home.The framing is deliberate. After two years in which India-Canada ties were dominated by diplomatic rupture, the visit is designed to foreground structural economic interests.The collapse in India-Canada relations began in September 2023 when then prime minister Justin Trudeau stood up in the House of Commons and alleged “credible” links between Indian agents and the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia. India rejected the allegation as “absurd” and “motivated”.Even as diplomats were expelled by both sides, India demanded parity in diplomatic staffing, forcing Canada to withdraw 41 diplomats and their families from its missions.In October 2024, tensions escalated again when Ottawa declared India’s high commissioner and other diplomats persona non grata. New Delhi responded in kind. It had accompanied Royal Canadian Mounted Police alleging links between Indian officials and violent criminal activity in Canada associated with the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, claims India denied.Also read: In Canada, Jaishankar Meets FM Anita Anand as Ottawa Keeps Focus on Law Enforcement TalksAt the time Trudeau first revealed the allegations, India maintained that Canada had not provided evidence to substantiate the charge. Patnaik confirmed that that remains New Delhi’s position. However, he indicated that with criminal proceedings underway in Canada, India is not pressing for disclosure.“Canada needs to put the case in the court,” he said, adding that India would cooperate if formally approached through law enforcement channels.Indian officials argue that political perceptions in Canada around Khalistan activism were shaped by electoral calculations and misunderstandings about the wider Sikh community. They contend that support for separatist politics represents a small fraction of the diaspora and that the relationship became hostage to that narrative during the crisis.Canadian officials and analysts, however, saw the episode differently. In Ottawa, there was a view that New Delhi did not sufficiently appreciate that peaceful advocacy, even for controversial causes, falls within constitutional protections of freedom of expression and assembly. There was also frustration in Canadian policy circles that the sharp public exchanges following Trudeau’s statement, coupled with what they described as misleading or exaggerated narratives in segments of Indian media about Canada’s actions, narrowed space for quiet diplomatic management.The result was a prolonged freeze. For months, neither capital had a top envoy. The tone shifted only after Carney replaced Trudeau in early 2025.At their first in-person meeting on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Kananaskis in June last year, Carney and Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to restore high commissioners and resume negotiations on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.They also endorsed restarting ministerial and working-level mechanisms across trade, energy, digital transformation, artificial intelligence, LNG, critical minerals and higher education.Since then, foreign ministers have exchanged visits. Trade ministers have co-chaired dialogues. National security advisers have met at least twice.India’s high commissioner to Canada said the objective now is to ensure the relationship is not defined by a single dispute.The agreements under discussion for Carney’s visit, Patnaik said, would “encompass the entire gamut of relations between both sides” and demonstrate that the India–Canada relationship is “multidimensional in nature, and not just restricted to a few issues.”He pointed to the recent visit of India’s national security adviser as a key step.“The NSA came, and the NSA-level meetings that were held have put together a security framework,” Patnaik said, adding that the two sides would now discuss issues ranging from drug smuggling and transnational organised crime to violent extremism and illegal immigration fraud.The formulation contrasts with the tenor of official exchanges during the height of breakdown in relations, when statements from India’s Ministry of External Affairs regularly criticised Ottawa for not accepting Indian security sensitivities and even questioned conduct of Canadian diplomats.Since Trudeau’s departure from Ottawa, India’s public messaging has shifted, reflecting a deliberate effort to lower rhetorical temperature which then gets reflected in the wider Indian mediascape.Carney’s visit now gives additional political ballast to that recalibration.The economic logicVeena Nadjibulla of the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada said the economic logic underpinning the reset was clear.Arguing that India is central to Ottawa’s diversification effort spurred by United States (US) President Donald Trump’s economic policies and political statements about Canada as a ‘51st’ state, she said, “It’s impossible for Canada to double its non-US exports without an India strategy,” she said. She described Carney’s approach as “much more pragmatic” and “focused on national interest”.Also read: In New Roadmap, India, Canada Agree to Start Minister-Level Trade Talks, Increase Staffing at MissionsThe push to diversify is unfolding against a backdrop of palpable strain in Canada’s relationship with the US. Trump’s repeated characterisations of Canada as a potential “51st state”, combined with tariff threats and economic pressure, have stung across the political spectrum.Canadian consumers have increasingly favoured domestic products over American imports, tourism flows to the US have softened and companies have leaned into national branding. Supermarket shelves now carry labels declaring “Proudly Prepared in Canada”, and even ordinary consumer goods, from dairy products to juice boxes, are marketed with conspicuous emphasis on their Canadian origin.That assertion of economic autonomy has created political space for deeper engagement with partners such as India.At the same time, Nadjibulla cautioned that public perceptions have not yet caught up with political momentum. According to surveys conducted by her organisation, favourability towards India fell from 56% in 2020 to 27% at the height of the crisis and stood at 29% last fall.“There is political momentum,” she said, “but public perception is lagging.”Nadjibulla argued that institutional depth would determine whether the reset endures. “If you institutionalise the partnership, at the ministerial level and at the working level, then when challenges arise, and they will, they do not overwhelm the entire relationship,” she said.The numbers explain the urgency.Even during the height of the cris, bilateral goods trade in 2024 was worth Canadian dollar 13.32 billion (USD 9.72 billion), with Indian exports to Canada at CAD 8.02 billion and imports at CAD 5.30 billion. Services trade was even larger, standing at CAD 19.61 billion in 2024.Beyond trade flows, Canadian portfolio investment in India exceeds CAD 100 billion (USD 72.97 billion), largely through public pension funds in major infrastructure projects.In Ottawa, that figure is often cited as evidence that Canada’s engagement with India is not tactical but structural. The returns from India’s growth feed directly into Canadian retirement savings, reinforcing the argument, both to Indian policymakers and to a domestic audience, that Canada’s stake in the relationship is long term and commercially grounded.When the two leaders had last met in Johannesburg, they set an ambitious target of doubling bilateral trade to CAD 50 billion by 2030 through a new Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, with negotiations on the pact to get another push during the forthcoming visit.Announcements expected during the visit are likely to span energy, including LNG and potential long-term uranium supply arrangements under the civil nuclear cooperation framework, critical minerals and expanded technology and innovation partnerships.Nadjibulla said the defence and security conversation is also widening, even if it remains at an early stage.Whether the reset endures will depend not only on the optics of meetings in Mumbai and New Delhi, but on the durability of the institutional mechanisms now being rebuilt when the relationship faces its next strain.