He also confirmed that they are discussing a bilateral visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Canada this December, when the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) will be announced. T hree years after India-Canada ties were blown apart by allegations that Indian officials were involved in the killing of a Khalistani activist in Canada, and New Delhi and Ottawa downsized missions and sent back High Commissioners, both sides celebrated restoring embassies back to full strength this week. Mr. Cooter, however, sidestepped questions about whether Canada owes India an apology for the public allegations that spurred the rift. Edited excerpts:
In a wide-ranging conversation at T he Hindu MIND event moderated by Suhasini Haidar, Canadian High Commissioner to India Christopher Cooter said the two countries have now gone well beyond a reset in ties.
It’s taken us some time to get here. It’s been over a year since Prime Minister Modi was invited to the G7 summit at Kananaskis in Alberta. But we have built momentum. I happened to arrive at the time that we started this reset, and now we have gone well beyond a reset. We are in a kind of dangerous time globally. We have two very hot wars going on (the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the West Asia conflict). We’ve got trade disruptions going on. We’ve got climate change. We’ve got AI, the challenge and opportunity. And it happens to be that this period in which we are re-establishing our relationship is the one that works the best for us. Suhasini Haidar: Do you see a big announcement round the corner? Prime Minister Narendra Modi is heading to North America in December for the G20 summit in the U.S. Do you expect his first bilateral visit in more than a decade this year? The two Prime Ministers, when Prime Minister [Mark] Carney came here in March, set out this kind of road map in a joint statement. There are commercial deals in the offing. There’s a broader range of areas where we are doing things together, for example, in defence. So, it’ll become a bit more tangible to the average person. In October, we have the largest trade mission coming to Mumbai and Bengaluru. We have had a lot of universities come through here. They have met government [officials], but they are also speaking to institutions, the IITs, and some of the new up-and-coming private universities. Yes, they are looking at campuses in India.
I think it has 50 or more deliverables and we are trying to fulfil those commitments. McGill [University] made an announcement when Prime Minister Carney was in India, and 13 new MoUs between different universities, Canadian universities, and Indian universities were also announced. In all of the 80 years or so that we have had diplomatic relations, I don’t think we have ever had an environment which draws us together in that same way.
Yes, a continuing string of events over the last year will culminate this year, we expect, in the visit of Prime Minister Modi to Canada.
A lot of people ask that question. The Canada-U.S. trade deal is a negotiation and there’s no question we will get there at some point. Mr. Trump is a hard bargainer. Well, so are we. That’s why the Prime Minister pulled out of talks that were going to produce a deal that wasn’t good enough for us. The pressures that we are getting from the U.S., yes, have accelerated certain things in Canada, but already Canada was shifting. The polling, the recent byelections we had, all demonstrate that across the country, from one end to the other, Canadians actually support the direction that we are taking. We can see that we had too many eggs in one basket. We don’t want that degree of dependence. We want to diversify. There’s a lot of political eye-to-eye view at this point. I think even if there were changes in government, that would survive this. Canadian High Commissioner to India Christopher Cooter being presented a memento by Varghese K. George, The Hindu ’s Resident Editor, New Delhi. The Hindu ’s Diplomatic Affairs Editor Suhasini Haider, and S. We think they are a great bridge between the two countries. What we had found for a period was that there were just too many students, not just Indian students, students from all kinds of countries, and we couldn’t accommodate them. Housing was a problem in certain smaller communities. Some of the colleges, frankly, took too many students and too much of their income; too much of their revenue was coming from foreign students. They were overdoing it. And there were fraud cases. So, the rules were clamped down. They were tightened. But the signal seems to have gone out that somehow Canada’s closed to any students. And that’s not at all the case. We welcome all good students. It’s true that the financial requirements have gone up, but they go up with inflation. I can tell you, having spoken to the university presidents, including of our very top universities; they all say the same thing – we would love to have more great Indian students.
Ramanujam, The Hindu ’s Assistant Vice President, Finance Administration, are also seen. | Photo Credit: SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA Look, we remain the host to more Indian students than any other country in the world – more than the U.S. – at about 4,27,000 students. Because at the top, at the political level, the two Prime Ministers have a good chemistry, and I think it will be good for India and the relationship with India.
Now, Prime Minister Modi has said he would like universities to come in and open bricks-and-mortar campuses, and they’re looking at that too, but already there are joint degrees and joint programmes that are up and running.
They have met four times over the last year.
