ON FRIDAY, Canada has reported that it would delay an October trade mission to India, amid tense relations between the two nations.
Mary Ng, a spokesperson for the Canadian Trade Minister confirmed the schedule change, though no reason was proposed for the pause.
Shanti Cosentino, a spokesperson for the minister said that at this time, we are postponing the upcoming trade mission to India.
Earlier in the day, unnamed Indian officials also told reporters that negotiations over a trade agreement were on pause, due to objections over “political developments in Canada”.
In May, Ng and Piyush Goyal, her Indian counterpart, had given a joint statement stating they expected to boost trade and investment between their two nations by the year’s end.
But those discussions have struck several high-level snags. Most recently, during last weekend’s G20 summit in the Indian capital, New Delhi, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided not to hold a formal bilateral meeting with Canadian leader Justin Trudeau, a decision many sensed to be unfriendliness.
Modi also drew Trudeau aside to criticize Canada’s handling of current Sikh protests.
Videos posted in June showed a controversial parade conducted in Brampton, Ontario, that was themed after the assassination of the former Indian prime minister, Indira Gandhi. The former Indian PM had been killed by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984 after she instructed military act against Sikh separatists at the Golden Temple in the state of Punjab.
The parade float flared uproar in the Indian government, which called the show a celebration of separatist brutality.
On Sunday, in a press release, after Modi met with Trudeau, the Indian government restated its “strong concerns about continuing anti-India activities” in Canada.
However, since his election in 2014, Modi has been charged with overseeing a rising surge of conservative Hindu nationalism in India, while minority groups in the nation have increased worries about threats to their human rights.
Meanwhile, Canada has the biggest Sikh population outside of Punjab. Among them are separatists who wish to make a separate Sikh state called Khalistan in northern India.
For his part, Trudeau has supported Canadians’ right to “freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, and freedom of peaceful protest”.
But the dispute has cast a pall over Indian-Canadian links. On September 1, in a shock action, Canada said it would halt the trade treaty talks — something Indian officials quoted in their statements to the press on Friday.
