Toronto: While extending greetings on the country’s national day to its Governor-General Louise Arbour, President Droupadi Murmu said she was encouraged by the “recent positive momentum” in bilateral relations while appreciating Canadian Mark Carney’s visit to India earlier this for having “imparted fresh impetus to our bilateral partnership”.
Canada Day is observed on July 1 each year and marks the anniversary of the Canadian Confederation, which was formed in 1867. “I am encouraged by the recent positive momentum in India-Canada relations, reflected in the renewed high-level engagements between our two countries,” President Murmu said in her message.
“Prime Minister Mark Carney’s successful visit to India has imparted fresh impetus to our bilateral partnership and underscored our shared commitment to strengthening cooperation across diverse sectors of mutual interest,” she added.
Carney visited India earlier this year and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on March 1 and they agreed to an ambitious roadmap towards elevating the relationship including clinching a comprehensive economic partnership agreement by the end of the year. That marked a renewal in ties after a reset came into place when Carney assumed charge as PM in March last year, and also reversed the trajectory under his predecessor Justin Trudeau, during whose tenure ties had cratered.
She also expressed confidence that these “developments will contribute to further deepening understanding, trust and mutually beneficial collaboration between our two countries”.
Greetings were also extended by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand. In a post on X, Jaishankar said he looked forward to “deepening” bilateral ties between the two countries.
In his greetings, India’s High Commissioner to Ottawa Dinesh Patnaik said, “India and Canada are both, today, in the midst of national renewal, bound not only by shared interests but by a shared belief in democracy, pluralism, and the rule of law”.
Such pleasantries between the two countries were largely absent after then PM Trudeau’s statement in the House of Commons on September 18, 2023, that there were credible allegations of a potential link between Indian agents and the killing of pro-Khalistan figure Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, British Columbia, three months earlier.
