New Delhi agrees to allow Canada to increase its staffing at missions in India: Official

A senior Indian official told the Hindustan Times, that the process of enhancing Canadian staffing in India will commence as soon as names of those to be posted are communicated to New Delhi. This has been agreed to during Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand’s visit to India earlier this month.

In October last year, 41 Canadian diplomats left India after New Delhi said their diplomatic immunity would be stripped and sought parity in numbers. India had 21 diplomats in Canada and prior to the downsizing, Canada had 62. However, the Canadian numbers could rise substantially in the months ahead if Ottawa simplifies the process for accreditation of Indian diplomats.

Though India will seek “reciprocity” in this context, it will not necessarily seek “parity”. This, the official explained, was because there were “certain things” that Canada required but India didn’t like a significant presence of immigration officials.

Before leaving India, Anand told Canadian media during the course of a vide conference that “staffing up” the diplomatic missions had been on the agenda. “I can assure you that we are building back to a complement of Canadian diplomats across the country. In terms of my conversations on this matter with (External Affairs) Minister (S) Jaishankar, we both agreed that we would staff up as we had been before in order to service our respective populations,” she said.

The exit of Canadian officials in October followed New Delhi’s decision to withdraw six diplomats from Canada after Ottawa asked for it to waive immunity for them so they could be questioned in connection with an investigation into violent criminal activity in the country. India immediately expelled six Canadian diplomats and then followed up by seeking “parity” and removing immunity from 41 officials who returned to Canada. At the time, Ottawa accused India of expelling them.

However, since the exit of then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a step-by-step reset is developing between the two countries. The breakthrough came when his successor as Prime Minister, Mark Carney held a bilateral meeting with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on the margins of the G7 leaders’ summit in Kananaskis in June. Anand’s visit to New Delhi and Mumbai was another step.

New Delhi has invited Carney to India for the Artificial Intelligence Impact Summit in February and even if he is unable to attend that meet, wants to host him within the first four months of next year, before summer sets in, the official said.

Carney underscored the reset on Wednesday, during a speech at the University of Ottawa highlighting his government’s goals for the forthcoming federal budget. He said, “We’re re-engaging with global giants, India and China.” That’s part of the strategy to reduce dependence on America, as he said his government’s “goal is to double our non-US exports over the course of the next decade”.

Interactions are expected to continue till then and the leaders may meet at the sidelines of a multilateral event later this year while ministerial-level talks are also expected to proceed.