Christopher Cooter, Canadian High Commissioner to India, on a new chapter in India-Canada relations, expanding trade and navigating a changing world. The conversation was moderated by Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor, The Indian ExpressShubhajit Roy: It has been almost three years since your former Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, levelled allegations of Indian involvement in the killing of what our government views as a pro-Khalistan separatist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Why did he do that? Could you give a sense of the journey from there to now.About that turbulent period, there was a killing in Canada. There is now a judicial process around that and arrests were made. It’s before the courts, and we’ll see what justice decides in the end. But more broadly, between the two countries, there was an absence of trust, which really broke down at the official level. Over the last year, there has been a rebuilding of that trust. You see it in the four meetings that the two PMs have had over the last year. You see it in the relationship we now have between security officials who met. They were in regular contact in the kind of practical things they do together now, so that they understand each other and we don’t surprise each other with statements or events. We’ve taken a lot of steps to address the security concerns, first and foremost of Canadians, but they also speak to some of your security concerns. We’ve listed the Bishnoi gang as a terrorist entity, launched a financial crimes commission, we have the Indian community in Canada under threat of extortion from some of these gangs, and so a lot of work has been done by our police. There is now a good deal of cooperation between the two countries in dealing with these kinds of issues. We want to build something that we’ve never had before with India, and our Prime Minister is committed to it. I think Prime Minister Modi is equally committed.Shubhajit Roy: Moving forward, have you been able to insulate the bilateral political diplomatic relationship from the trial and the investigations into the killing of Nijjar and other such activities in Canada?Yes, we all recognise that things can happen. There are people out there who do not want this relationship to be a success, who promote a negative agenda between the two countries. That’s what happened in the past. It could happen again in the future. There could be some unexpected event. So what we’ve done by these institutional linkages is to try to insulate. It’s not to put it to one side but to address it in a manner in which we have a productive outcome, where we can anticipate problems and deal with them. There is remarkable progress in the last few months in getting to a place which we’ve never really been in before. Canadian High Commissioner Christopher Cooter (right) in conversation with Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor, The Indian Express (Photo by Renuka Puri)Shubhajit Roy: What is the different approach adopted by PM Carney as compared to PM Trudeau?It is not just with respect to India. We will maintain our principles, of course, but we will be pragmatic. We will not take things off the table just because we don’t agree with the way people are doing things. We will talk to everyone. And that has worked very much in the favour of improving the relationship. In the uncertain world that we now live in with respect to trade relationships, our PM, who has a strong economic background, having been the bank governor of both Canada, and of England, comes forward with a very strong economic pitch that we need to build our ties with. We need to, in a way, almost rebuild Canada. And as we do this, India is a key player on the global scene. So there’s a recognition that we need to work with India. We also have this very large diaspora; it’s almost two million people in Canada. One of the things I was struck by in India is that sense of relief that Canada and India had come back together again. There was an emotional piece to this, not just about security but a feeling that how could this happen — we’re family. We are rebuilding that emotional connection at an individual as well as a collective level. We are at different places in development, different speeds, different needs in our economies, but there’s an interesting relationship that just happens to work very, very well right now.On bridging trust deficit | ‘There was an absence of trust, which really broke down at the official level… There is remarkable progress in the last few months in getting to a place in which we’ve never really been before’Story continues below this ad Canadian High Commissioner Christopher Cooter. (Express photo by Renuka Puri)Shubhajit Roy: Amid the energy crisis and energy insecurity, how does Canada look at this war in West Asia and how can Canada and India cooperate in energy collaboration?The crisis, the war in the Gulf, the Ukraine war, and even Covid, they’ve all been highly disruptive. The lessons we are taking away are that we need to have fewer eggs in one basket, more resilience and more redundancy. Of course, we all hope these wars end as soon as possible. I know that you’ve got 10 million people in the Gulf, with a lot at stake in that region. But if you look at Canada, what we offer is a reliable partner in energy, probably more than any other country in the world. We like to think of ourselves as an energy superpower. We are number four in oil reserves and production, number five in natural gas production, number five in LPG production, and number six in nuclear power. We also have all the critical minerals that go into the green transition: rare earths, lithium, graphite and so on. So what we offer is stability and an enormous variety of energy sources. We’ve got fossil fuels, transition fuels, and the technology to make those transition fuels work, like batteries, which we’re producing in large numbers. We have a long history in nuclear power. When the PM was here, there was a sale of $2.3 billion of uranium for your reactors. But beyond nuclear, we’ve never sold you oil, gas, or LPG. Those are all huge now in Canada, and the infrastructure to deliver them to you has improved enormously. By 2030, we’ll be able to export 50 million tonnes of natural gas through our West Coast ports. We’ll have a 400 per cent increase in our ability to export LPG. We have a pipeline exporting oil from the West Coast that, with a few tweaks, will be able to export about a million barrels. But we just announced another pipeline, allowing us to export two million barrels. We produce between five and six million barrels a day. Interestingly, you import about that amount per day, so we will have the capacity to supply a significant amount. If you’ve had difficulties with supply from the Gulf, suddenly Canada appears as exciting. On nuclear, we just announced a new nuclear policy, looking forward to producing up to 10 more reactors in Canada. That policy is focused on working with countries abroad on building their nuclear capacity. Eighteen of your 24 existing reactors are based on CANDU reactors, the Canadian technology. So as your energy needs grow and are distributed — for example, your PM spoke about the full electrification of your railway system — that takes a lot of power. Could that be something that a small modular reactor would be able to power? There is lots of interest in that field.Shubhajit Roy: The other major takeaway from PM Carney’s visit in March this year was the speeding up of negotiations to conclude a trade agreement — the CEPA (Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement), by the end of the year. What are the issues and challenges? Are you confident it will be wrapped up by the end of the year?I’m very confident that it will go forward. Both PMs have expressed their commitment several times. We like free trade agreements, good ones that work for us. We’ve done a number of them in the last year, giving us access to about one and a half billion people, and we expect we can even double that amount. We did one in 47 days with the UAE recently. We took, unfortunately, 12 years the last time we tried negotiating with you and didn’t get very far. That isn’t going to happen this time. I’m confident that we’re going to get this done soon.Story continues below this adThere are two things that a trade agreement should achieve. One is that it increases the ease of doing business through the removal of tariffs. But the other is that it demonstrates that both countries are open to business. We also have a large trade delegation coming in October. There are other pieces to the economic equation that we’re working on hard as well. When all these start to come to fruition, you’ll see our overall economic relationship in a much stronger place. The two PMs committed to double trade by 2030. That sounds ambitious, but our trade is nowhere near where it should be. Even a few large agreements on energy or critical minerals could easily double or even triple. I think we should be even more ambitious and look beyond 2030. Where do we want to be for Viksit Bharat? That is probably the long-range frame that we need to think about. If you look at things like critical minerals and opening a mine on a mineral like tungsten, we have 20 per cent of the world’s reserves, that’s important for defence, auto, and so on. We don’t have a single active mine. So to get to the place where we have a mine, we need three to five years. So a lot of areas need some time to ripen. It fits so well with the Canadian economy, potential and our resources, human and natural. It fits so well with the way that your economy is growing that it’s hard to imagine that we would not have a much bigger economic relationship, which the free trade agreement will facilitate.On defence cooperation | ‘We’ve just agreed with the Europeans to develop 12 submarines. But what we lack is scale. As we grow together, we’re hopeful our industries can work together to protect both countries, while giving us access to world market’Shubhajit Roy: US President Trump has taken a much more hardline approach with Canada, calling it the 51st state and almost berating the Canadians and the government. How do you view this to play out?We are disappointed. And the PM said that we had to walk away from the talks because the demands at the end were just beyond what we could possibly meet, and they went beyond normal trade talks. The 51st state dimension, imposition on our cultural sovereignty… Efforts to strain our ability to have free trade agreements with other countries. These were impositions that we couldn’t accept. The US will always be an incredibly important partner for us: culturally, people-to-people, economic ties. That’s a geographic and political reality. We’ll find our way through this. But in parallel, diversification and building Canada stronger is not plan B; it’s plan A. So, we are investing heavily into our own economy and resources. So, if the Americans think that we’re going to just roll over because we don’t have resources, they miscalculated. We really like Americans. We look like them, talk like them, all the rest of it. But we are going to protect that sovereignty. The talks have broken down, as you know, tariffs will be imposed on the Americans dollar for dollar, but we will do what’s in the best interest of Canada. Canadian High Commissioner Christopher Cooter (right) in conversation with Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor, The Indian Express (Photo by Renuka Puri)Shubhajit Roy: On Canada’s relationship with China, PM Carney reached out to President Xi. Given India’s own complicated relationship with China, how do you view Canada’s relationship with Beijing?Story continues below this adPM Carney was in China before he came to India. His foreign policy is based on pragmatism. As with India, we also have a very large diaspora from China in Canada and the economic relationship with Canada is very large. It’s much bigger than the one we have with India and a lot of Canadian jobs are at stake in that relationship. So, he was determined to put that back on an even keel, which we’ve now done. We do see India and China as different kinds of countries. You’re a democracy, a federal country. We share a language. We share a legal history, so that makes it easier for us to do business in some ways. Insurance, banking, all those kinds of things are founded in similar laws. There is always going to be an important Canadian-Chinese relationship. It will be different from the one that we have with you, different in quality and character.Divya A: On a number of occasions the Indian side has expressed concern about the political space given to separatist elements in Canada. How seriously has the current dispensation taken those concerns?It’s a democracy; people have a right to express themselves. We may not agree with them, but we do have to maintain that respect for the right of people to express their views, whether we like them or not. I think if you look at the report of our intelligence agency that was tabled before Parliament a few weeks ago, you’ll see a tone that’s a bit different. It talks about Khalistan actors. It talks about the Air India bombing, which we’ve commemorated. We are looking at that issue seriously, and the primary driver is never going to be about what another country thinks about it. It’s going to be what protects our citizens. The Air India bombing killed a great many Canadian citizens, and I think that our agencies are aware of the risks.On Canada’s China ties vis-a-vis India | ‘There is always going to be an important Canadian-Chinese relationship. It will be different from the one that we have with you, different in quality and character’Amrita Nayak Dutta: After March, when the maritime security partnership was announced, which also covered defence material cooperation, how has it progressed and what are the key things that you’re looking at in that particular domain?Story continues below this adSo, in the maritime, as we have in the joint statement that the two PMs agreed to, they foresee a defence dialogue to take place. We also would like to see our private sectors work together. We are ramping up rapidly on defence spending. About $180 billion of that will be in procurement. I mentioned the $500 billion between now and 2035, and the rest will be on dual-use infrastructure. It’s a huge increase for Canada. So what we hope is that the companies on both sides will be able to work together. We’re also working on what we call a joint security of information agreement that allows them to have a framework for sharing sensitive information. We’ve got expertise in areas like optics, for example. We’re ramping up there because with climate change the Arctic zone is becoming more accessible to other countries and we have a big piece of real estate up there. So we’re concerned about that area. We’ve just agreed with our European friends to develop 12 submarines for Canadian use. But what we lack is scale. We only have 42 million people, and defence products can be extremely expensive. As we grow together, we are hopeful that we can find areas where this makes a lot of sense for our industries to work together to produce something that is to protect both of our countries, but potentially gives us access on the world market. Canadian High Commissioner Christopher Cooter. (Express photo by Renuka Puri)Saptarshi Basak: PM Carney became an international superstar with his speech in Davos. Canada is the first US ally to directly resist the US. Why do we see this from Canada and Carney and not from, say, the Europeans?As the PM said, the cumulative effect of a number of decisions, including something we gave at the last minute, resulted in him having to pull back on the trade talks. So it wasn’t done in any way as performance art. It was done because it was the only decision we could take at this point. How others in the EU react to the US: everybody has their own calculation of what makes sense. At the end of the day, though, we want a great relationship with the US, whether it’s in defence, economics, culture, and so on. Many people, particularly in the US, find it rather bizarre that we’re in this position.As for the Davos speech, in the world today, it’s not the simpler world of 1945. The world has evolved a lot, so there are a lot of powers who want to be more active in the world. They’ve got the capacity to do it, they’ve got the population, and they have a legitimate role to play. So when we talk about what he said, variable geometry and so on, regardless of the US or other larger powers, there is a lot of scope for countries to work together. In that Davos speech, it’s not simply a reaction to, as he called them, the hegemon. He also said the old order wasn’t entirely honest. We haven’t yet constructed a new one. Those of us who can rely on each other when it comes to trade pacts or other deals should work together, to protect each other’s sovereignty.Story continues below this adShubhajit Roy: There are 4,00,000 students in Canada besides the diaspora. Visas have been a big concern for many Indians. How are you trying to fix that?We did have some problems over the last few years, where in some cases there were so many students coming, not just from India, but so many international students that there wasn’t enough housing. There were also fly-by-night colleges that were not really giving an education. We’ve tightened the rules, and the goal is to make sure that Indian students coming to Canada, or any students coming, have a great educational experience. They come away well-trained, properly housed, with an excellent education at a good price point. We’ve made a lot of progress in the last couple of years. We did impose caps because the numbers were growing more than we could handle. One unintended consequence was that the reputation of Canada in India was that it was somehow closed to students. Nothing could be further from the truth. We would like to see more Indians coming for tourism. We know we have to get the visa system working better, and we are looking at that very seriously now.